Mass Effect: Limits Of Men
by LordCastor
Summary: Somehow I found myself in the Mass Effect Universe, I awake on Eden Prime and from there my only thoughts are of survival, I meet Shepard and the crew, knowing their possible futures and pasts I must help them through the trials to come. However, killing a person in a video game is easy in reality can my mind take the strain? Can I live with the deaths of those I fail to save?
1. One Hell Of A Landing

I was in a state of shock to say the least. Here I was sat lying down in the middle of what

appeared to be a crater with flaming wreckage scattered around like leaves in the autumn. Some might almost call it peaceful in those opening moments, but all thoughts of that were shattered as my body suddenly woke up screaming in agony.

I tried to scream but no sound came or at least sound that I could hear. Every cell on my body felt like it was on fire, every movement was like someone was standing on whatever part of myself I tried to move. After what seemed like an eternity of lying down trying to get my body to respond to basic commands, I gave up at and just began to think to myself.

 _Okay think, what the absolute hell is going on?_ As I lay there thinking, I felt like a bomb had detonated in my head. I threw my arms around my head and screamed again. This time I heard it, and just like that noises began to fill my head. The crackling of the flames was first soft and somewhat welcoming... the next sounds, not so much.

 _Gunshots!?_ Or at least what I suspected was gunshots. _Okay gotta move now._ I thought to myself as I once again willed my body to work. This time it responded. The pain I had once felt was now all but a minor throbbing' still not a pleasant experience but better than the situation I'd found myself in a moment ago.

"Okay, okay. Think, think, think." I said as I for the first time since this great ordeal began I could stand and get a good look at my surroundings. What I saw was somewhat surprising to say the least.

I was indeed in a crater somewhere ten to fifteen meters in diameter. I guessed what caused the crater was scattered around me in a thousand tiny pieces. This revelation was less than comforting as I came to the realization of what'd happened, along with the question: how the hell was I alive in the middle of this mess.?

As I continued sort of stumbling around the crater, I wasn't even sure what I was looking for or hoping to accomplish. Had this been a plane crash? An Old land mine? "What the actual fuck?" I muttered to myself as I finally came to the wall of the crater. "I am going to have a fun time explaining this to whoever comes to investigate," I sighed as I began to climb out.

As I finally crested the edge of the crater, I was greeted with a scene of absolute destruction.

There were bodies scattered around the place: body parts, full bodies, splintered trees, burning grass, and scorched earth. The smells and sights were too much and I felt my gut wrenching in disgust. There were what seemed to be weapons lying around. It looked like something from a war film. My mind was brought back to my current situation.

"Okay, I have got a crater the size of a house and, I have what seems to be a war zone in front of me." I said to myself somewhat surprised that I wasn't completely panicking. "Alright, what have I got to work with.? If this is what I think it is, I can't be standing around here like an idiot." I wasn't

overly sure why I wasn't using my inside voice considering the situation. After looking around trying to find anything I could use to defend myself or at least hide with, I yelled in frustration. "FUCK ME THERE ARE SOLDIERS HERE! DEAD SOLDIERS AND I CAN'T FIND ANYTHING TO USE! WHAT A LOAD OF SHIT!"

 **Combat situation recognized. Engaging combat protocol. : Enemy analysed. Geth located.**

I spun around trying to find the source of the voice I had just heard. I must have looked like a complete idiot as I spun left to right looking for the... women I thought I had heard.

 **Combat protocol complete.**

And with that my body began to flicker.

"What the-?" I didn't even get to finish my sentence as some sort of armour appeared. It looked like it came in separate plates; it was black with a two light blue stripes running parallel down my left side and left arm with two dark red stripes down my right side and right arm, and a singular green stripe running down the centre. Along with the armour, something that I could only describe as some kind of HUD one would see in a video game was brought into my vision. It showed my vitals, shield status, and it brought up some kind of map of the area centred around me.

"Okay... I am seriously out of my mind, but that is really cool." I said while a slight smile developed on my face.

"...Wait a sec. Did this thing just say Geth? As in flashlight robot Geth? As in mass effect Geth?" I suddenly sputtered, brain catching up with my ears, as I found what looked like a pistol on my pocket and assault rifle behind my back.

"Okay I am surely just having a really lucid dream." I said as I pulled the pistol into my hand. "Yep

seems like a perfect fit for mass effect." I decided as I looked over the weapon, feeling the weight. It was obviously collapsible, with no clip system as far as I could tell. I knew I played the games a lot but this amount of detail was truly surprising.

 **ALERT: ENEMIES WITHIN VISUAL PROXIMITY.**

At that I snapped up at and saw what was to my mind at least an impossible sight. Three Geth were standing roughly three hundred meters to my front. "Well shit." I said as they raised their weapons and opened fire. Their rounds seemed to vanish as they impacted with what I could only assume/hope were my shields., Given the situation I didn't really have the time to ask them.

I could only think to do one thing.

RUN.

And just like that I found myself running from three Geth through a wonderfully green landscape.

Well, it was as wonderful as it could have been besides the odd corpse scattered around and impact craters. I didn't have time to feel anything about the scenario; I should have felt something about the death around me or at least fear considering I had three killing machines chasing me, but oddly I felt nothing. My mind was racing thinking of how I was going to get out of this situation.

 _I can't run forever! I have to form a plan. As far as I know there are three of them behind me,_

 _and at any moment I could run into more._ Then it hit me. _SHEPARD._ _How did I not think of this sooner? Whether or not this was a dream I am not willing to find out by taking bullets to the face. Wait do Geth even use bullets? Plasma? Oh who cares, not important. These are Geth and this is a peaceful looking world. Eden Prime?_ As that thought came to mind my HUD changed.

 **Confirming your location... Please standby. Location: Eden Prime, Systems, Alliance Space.**

 _Well that's a handy feature,._ I thought to myself as the Geth began to gain on me. With their shots impacting occasionally on my shields and on the ground and environment around me. _Right, well I have got to go faster._ As I continued to run, my mind was running just as fast I was picking out my surroundings talking and taking optimized paths through the undergrowth.

 **Friendlies located. Analysing.**

 _This thing is great. Okay, it seems to react to my thoughts. This seriously shits all over Apple. Suck on that on Steve Jobs! Master of innovation my ass._

 **Analysis complete. One friendly located, female, six hundred meters due north east.**

 **Under fire from hostile Geth. Estimation of three Geth engaging friendly.**

 _Okay that is kind of creepy._ _What kind of computer can figure all that out at this distance.? Well_

 _two on six is better than one on three. It would be nice having someone watching my back and I am sure they would appreciate the same._

With the new information from the computer that seemed to be inside my head, I began heading in the direction of the friendly which I could only assume would be one slightly xenophobic gunnery chief. How it got there is beyond me but I have more pressing concerns such as whether if I was in a dream, coma, or even if I was dead. _No, not important survival takes priority._

I ducked behind a rather large boulder and prepared myself to engage the Geth.

"Let's do this,." I let out as I steadied my aim. The first and second Geth ran right past but, before I could celebrate however the third turned and look right at me and raised its weapon.

"Sorry!" I fired my pistol three times. Two of my rounds slammed into its body while the third shattered its head or flashlight or whatever. I took off back the way I came and towards the friendly tagged on my map, while the shots began impacting around me again. "Guess they didn't like me killing their friend,." I muttered to myself as I closed in on hopefully a helping hand and an end to this... _interesting_ experience.

 _ **Ashley**_

"What are these things!?" She yelled as she fired another burst over her shoulder, continuing to run. These things had laid waste to her entire squad and, they hadn't even heard them coming

before the bullets started to fly. She had tried her best to organise her squad but before she could even locate where the attack was coming from half her unit was lost.

She really didn't want to think about it; she had other things to worry about. She wasn't even sure if there was anyone left that could help her. A distress call had been sent but she didn't know if it had been received. Eden Prime was out of the way; even if the distress was picked up by the Alliance it would take time to arrive. Maybe too much time. She was sure in the chaos of the initial ambush she had seen a shuttle or some form of aircraft get shot down but she couldn't be sure. Her first responsibility was to her squad and the people of Eden Prime. 

And it seemed to her that she had let them all down. She was the only one left now. she was alone but giving up wasn't in her. she had fought for everything she had. Blacklisted or not, she was going to be a marine and a marine did not surrender when things got tough.

"Come on, I'll show you what a Williams is made of!" She yelled at her attackers as she turned to fire. Her rounds seemed to have no effect as the heavily shielded bodies brought their weapons to bear against her. _This is it,_ she thought as she steeled herself for what was surely to come, focusing all of her efforts into firing her gun at her would be killers again no effect.

"Incoming!" she heard someone shout as one of the attackers fell, white liquid spraying from its midsection. The other attackers turned towards the sound of the voice and as their attention shifted she had her opening. Quickly dropping her assault rifle she pulled up her sniper rifle, realizing she needed more firepower to have a chance of penetrating her attacker's shields. She took aim and fired, this time her shot tore through the shielding and tore the head off the one to her left as another few shots rang out from the right tearing the remaining attacker to pieces.

She was alive. She let out a sigh of relief as her apparent saviour came into view, the person running towards her had pistol in hand and was sprinting towards her occasionally looking over their shoulder.

"Don't relax! Two more behind me!" The person shouted at her and sure enough two more figures emerged from the bushland this person had come from. Ashley took aim once more with her sniper steadying her aim and breathing. Fire was now impacting around the person running towards her, she had to act soon or she would surely be alone again against this living nightmare she found herself in. The friendly dove to the ground seeing what she was preparing to do. A single shot rang out from her gun and once more it tore through the shields and impacted the closest target's midsection virtually tearing it in half. Before she could celebrate she took another breath and fired at the second pursuer as it came to a stop clearly trying to assess the situation it had found itself in, the shot impacted but this time it only tore off an arm, forcing it to drop its weapon two more shots rang out and the person on the floor had put two rounds from their pistol into its legs forcing it to drop to its knees.

She could see now her fellow human clearly, he was heavily armoured he had another weapon on his back and he had curly brown hair. His armour was clearly not alliance. _Mercenary_ she thought to herself as she walked towards him picking up her assault rifle from the floor. She kept her hand on the trigger she didn't know who this person was he could be just as dangerous as these things. As she continued now she watched as he picked himself off the floor and began walking towards the immobile hostile, pistol at his side. As he reached the target he calmly placed his pistol against its head and pulled the trigger, putting an end its life with a brutally cold efficiency, before firing a few more rounds into its chest and doing the same to the others that had been taken out earlier.

"Gotta be sure" she heard him mutter to himself as he holstered his pistol. As he turned around she brought her rifle to her eye and trained it on him.

"Who are you? What are you doing here?" She spoke like she demanded an answer. She was demanding an answer.

 **Mystery Man**

As I turned to face who I recognized as Ashley Williams with her rather strange white and pink armour being a dead giveaway I found myself staring down the barrel of a gun.

"Who are you? What are you doing here?" She barked at me. _Shit that's a good question. Who am I? Shit shit shit think think think, how can I not know my own name, okay not important she looks pissed I have got to come up with something. Jason Bourne? No fuck that if I have to make up a name I am not stealing a name from a god film, I mean who does that?_

"Listen why" I started to say before she cut me off. "No if you value your life you will answer me. Who are you? What are you doing here!?" She ordered a little more forcibly this time.As I stared at her in a semi state of shock her eyes giving away her intention to follow through with her threat if I didn't answer, my HUD once again changed. In the upper left section a new drop box appeared.

ID: Carolus Rex.

Gender: Male

Age: 29

Place of birth: Earth, Southampton, Earth.

 _God bless this machine_ , I thought, well that solves my name even if it is a rather odd one at that, It didn't seem very English.

"My name is Carolus Rex" I answered, not willing to stall any further at risk of losing my head. "I was on my way to the colony when my ship came under fire." I quickly added hoping I could talk my way out of this situation.

"What were you coming here for?" She asked again.

"I was just on my way through, I came to buy some supplies before moving on I swear." I replied slowly raising my hands as to try to relax her. "I mean we could spend forever asking twenty questions if you like but I do not think we are very safe here. If more of these things show up we could be in some real trouble, so how about we agree to get along for now?" I asked not taking my eyes away from hers.

"That's good enough for now." She said as she lowered her rifle from my head. _Oh thank god._ "What is your name?" I asked hoping to get some cement my newly earned and rather flimsy trust.

"Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams of the 212th" She quickly responded before turning her gaze towards the sky.

"Alright then Gunnery Chief Williams. Where should we go?" Just as I achieved a sense of calm my HUD once again came to ruin my day or dream, or death. I still had no idea if this was real, it felt real but it couldn't be surely?

 **Hostiles detected location 150 meters due south, Geth estimated force strength calculating**

 _Well fuck me._ Before Ashley could answer my previous question I began sprinting away from the newly detected Geth.

"Where are you going?!" She shouted as she began following me gun drawn.

"My radar has picked up more hostiles we have to go now!" I shouted back as once again enemy fire began impacting around us. Myself and Ashley were now running as fast as our legs would take us, I was still aching from my apparent incident earlier in the day, but I was still significantly faster than Ashley, who was clearly struggling for breath after the past few hours of combat. I turned to return some fire from my pistol to try and draw the fire towards me and away from her, it seemed to do the trick as the Geth began returning fire in my direction.

"Take cover over there!" I yelled over the sound of gunfire while pointing at a series of large rocks that we could use as cover. Ashley immediately dove behind cover firing at a couple or drones that flew overhead.

 **Calculation complete. Geth numbers five units. Threat condition recognised emergency repairs to implants underway.**

 _Implants? The hell, no time to worry about that I have enough to deal myself and Ashley now both took turns popping in and out of cover and firing our assault rifles down towards the Geth trying to stop them from moving any closer my eyesight began to go in and out of focus. One moment I could see everything crystal clear, the next I could only make out faint shapes with no colour. As a result, my aim was all over the shot, I didn't see if Ashley had noticed my now sporadic fire or if she was too busy trying to stay alive._

 _I felt a tug on my right shoulder as I turned my eyesight still going in and out of focus I saw a Geth had gotten around us. Before I could react it threw me over its head with one hand, sending me hurdling into another large boulder. My eyesight was now almost all but gone, I reached for my pistol and tried to fire at the Geth now working its way towards me. I couldn't' make out what It was reaching for but I knew whatever it was couldn't be good for me, my rounds slammed harmlessly on the various pieces of the environment scattered around, I just couldn't focus. Not like this, come on what is wrong with me._

 _ **Emergency repairs complete biotic implants online, cybernetic implants reset, Omnitool rebooted.**_

As quickly as it had begun my eyesight returned, but this time it felt different, It felt like I had gone from watching a VHS to Blu-ray, colours were so much clearer everything had a crisp feel to it.

"FUCK OFF I AM NOT DYING HERE!" As I said that I threw myself at the Geth who I could see now was holding what seemed to be a shotgun. I punched it as hard as I could in its head and watched as its head flew from its neck and slammed into a nearby tree. A light blue aura was now flowing around my body and a much darker blue around my clenched fist. Without missing a beat, I grabbed the Geth's shotgun and ran back towards the rock I had been behind earlier before I was thrown by the Geth I had just broke like a matchstick. Ashley was still engaging a number of Geth as more had joined the fight, there was a total of eight now I acted on instinct I stood up from behind the rock I was crouched behind and let the blue aura flow through my body and ran towards the Geth. I brought my newly acquired shotgun to bear and blasted a sizeable hole through the closest Geth, while more fire came from behind me I assumed it was Ashley now firing more freely as I had gathered the collective attention of the remaining Geth.

Their rounds were just impacting harmlessly off my protective barrier, A few Geth fell to the fire coming from behind me while I worked my way around firing my shotgun at those that moved to engage me. The next few moments were a blur it was as if I was just a passenger in my own body, I ran up to Geth one at a time either blasting them apart with my shotgun or tearing them apart with my pair hands like tissue paper. My shotgun overheated so I threw it as hard as I could at the last Geth and watched it stumble over, as It did so my body threw itself on top of it and brought my glowing blue hand smashing down into its head and then into its chest over and over again like I was in some primal rage, I was venting everything I had into removing every trace of this thing from existence. I have no idea where these feelings came from, all I knew was that this thing needed to vanish.

"Carolus. Carolus you can stop now." The rage in my body vanished as quickly as it had begun, I stopped my fist halfway through another punch against the now unrecognisable remnants of the Geth. I was breathing heavily, the blue aura around my body had slowly dissipated and I sat down on the ground trying to control my irregular heavy breathing.

"Is he alright?" I heard another voice, another woman asked as she arrived next to Ashley and crouched down to look at me.

As she lowered herself to my level she removed her helmet revealing silver hair that went to her shoulders and had bangs that just covered the majority of her forehead, as striking as the silver hair was it was her dark red eyes that finally got my attention.

"I don't know, one moment we were fighting these things, the next he flipped out started tearing them apart." Ashley added as she looked over at the other man who was now catching up to the two ladies looking at me.

"That was some biotic power, is he a soldier?" He asked Ashley as he began working on his omnitool.

"No, at least I don't think so, he said he was here for supplies then he was going to move on."

"Well that can wait, you said his name was Carolus right?" The red eyed women asked. Ashley nodded in response. "Well Carolus you did quite a number on these guys here. My name is Commander Shepard. Everything is going to be just fine now." She said in a calm voice while offering a warm smile.

"Shepard" I said softly before I lay myself on the ground, my armour was covered in the white "blood" of the Geth, my hands were dripping with it. What just happened?

 _ **Author's notes:**_

 _ **Greetings all my name is Castor and I will be bringing you this Mass Effect fan fiction, I hope some of you come to enjoy my work but most importantly I am doing this for fun. I am very much open to feedback and even If only one other person reads this It's mission complete for me.**_

 _ **A special thanks from TREBOR117 who has agreed to proofread my work if you don't already you should read his Mass Effect SI starting with Stuck in a World of Fiction. It's seriously what finally got me off my ass to write this after four or five years of wanting to.**_

 _ **Cya next chapter.**_


	2. Not The Best Plan

As I lay on the ground letting the conversation that Kaidan and Ashley were having drown into the background until It was nothing more than white noise, my mind was running at a thousand miles an hour. I have had dreams like these before, but this felt different, somehow it felt like more. More worrying was the fact that I had clear memories of where I was and _what_ this was, but not _who_ I am. My HUD had given me my apparent name but it just didn't seem to fit, it just felt unnatural.

I was brought out of my daze as Shepard began scanning me with her Omni-tool.

"His body readings are fine, slightly elevated heart rate but other than that he is fine." She was looking back and forwards between her Omni-tool and me, as I brought myself to sit up she let out another soft smile.

"Carolus I hope you don't mind me using your first name." She spoke softly clearly worried about my wellbeing, it was a nice change to Ashley's earlier demanding and threatening tone.

"No that's fine I…." I paused as I looked down at my arms, white 'blood" was clearly visible it was running down the lengths of my arms and dripping onto the ground beneath me, which was now soaked in the white substance. Shepard most have noticed my face and carefully placed a hand on my left shoulder.

"Are you okay? You blanked out on us for a while there." I quickly turned my head to the right and then to the left, the surrounding area was a mess, broken pieces of Geth lay scattered around with white puddles and splatter marks dotting the foliage and ground.

"Did. Did I do this?" I managed to mutter as I moved her hand off my shoulder.

"Mostly. We helped clean off a few of them but for the most part you gave them quite the surprise." She replied looking at me more quizzically. "Do you not remember?" I thought on that for a moment, I mean I do remember but it felt more like I was a passenger in my own body just an unwilling viewer to an act of pure ferocity.

"No. I mean yes I remember; it's just it didn't feel." I stopped myself not sure of what to say. This all just seemed so surreal. "I guess I am just not good with, whatever this is." I finally managed to answer as Shepard offers me a hand off the ground.

"Well myself and my fellow soldiers here will be making our way towards the colony proper, you are welcome to tag along." She yanked me off the floor and onto my feet. "I won't ask you fight with us if you don't want to. But we could use all the help we can get." Her face turned solemn. "We have already lost a good man today." She added rubbing the back of her neck and turning away to walk over towards where Ashley and Kaidan were talking.

I found myself just watching Shepard as she made her way over towards the two marines. _Of course, she just lost Jenkins._ She must be hurting; I can't imagine what I must feel like to lose someone who was your responsibility. Despite the pain she must be in she still put me and person she has never met before herself. It's strange thinking I must have done Eden Prime hundreds of times in the games and never so much as flinched at the death of a Jenkins, hell everyone knew his name was a joke, his fate was well understood from the moment you as the player spoke to him on the Normandy.

 **Neural implants overloaded. All non-essential neural operation processes closing down.**

 **Biotics – Online.**

 **Omni-tool – Online.**

 **Neural Regulator- Offline.**

 **Neural Network – Offline.**

My brooding was cut short with the new notifications now being displayed quite clearly in my HUD. _Neural Regulator? Neural Network? The hell are those?_ Again before I could finish my line of thought my left arm glowed orange and an Omni-Tool took shape. I looked over the display it had generated and saw a request from Shepard, she was requesting I join her communication network. Thinking my best bet of survival was sticking with Shepard because well she is Commander goddamn Shepard, I accepted and started making my way over to others.

"We still don't know what he is and you asked him to come with us?" The man I recognised as Kaidan asked Shepard as I made my way over. I saw him prepare to ask more but cut himself off as he saw me approach.

" **I** am in command Kaidan; besides he took care of those guys pretty well. We could use as much help as possible until we know just what is going on here." Shepard answered with just a touch of venom in her tone.

"Commander" I said as I joined the circle of soldiers. "I ugh would like to take you up on your offer." Ashley still looked angry to say the least. Clearly despite the events of earlier it seems she still didn't seem to accept me. "It has been a rough day, I appreciate it." She gave me a quick glance up and down clearly taking me in, since she hadn't really had the chance to do so in the firefight and my subsequent collapse.

"So Kaidan over here is my second for this mission." She said gesturing her head towards Kaidan. I extended my hand towards in an attempt to gain some basic level of trust.

"Hello Kaidan, I am Carolus." I leave my hand out for a few moments before Kaidan finally places his hand in my and returns a firm shake.

"Carolus, that's quite a unique name. I am Staff Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko." We awkwardly stood there a moment before I withdrew my hand from his.

"So Chief Williams, as we were saying we are looking for the Prothean beacon that was dug up. Which way was it located?" Shepard asked clearly noticing the awkwardness between myself and Kaidan.

"Yes Commander, the beacon should still be at the dig site. Just a short way in that direction." Ashley responded gesturing with her rifle back the direction I had come from earlier.

"Alright, let's move out, Williams and Carolus can take point. Kaidan and I shall support you from the rear." Those words were somewhat surprising, is she using me as a shield? Had I misjudged her? I mean renegade Shepard's were down right evil at times. It would help if I could get her first name, I had played somewhere in the order of fifty-two different play throughs of the Mass Effect series, the year leading up to the third game's release I was averaging a complete play through every fortnight, the joys of having nothing but free time I suppose.

 **Enemies detected, systems damaged. Calculat….**

My HUD was clearly damaged while earlier it had been providing me with great information, It was a life safer but just like that it was ripped away from me in the always annoying sound of static in my ears before finally fading out into silence.

"You hear us?" Shepard's voice crackled into my ears. "Carolus?"

"Ugh yea sorry my implants or Omni-tool seem to be a bit damaged. Just performed a reset." I replied finally realizing I hadn't pulled out my firearm. The assault rifle was pretty average, was the best way I could describe it from the fight earlier, so I opted for my pistol it seemed to pack a hell of a punch and it felt more natural to me. It felt strange to think that, as much as I tried to recall anything from before waking up all I could recall was all Mass Effect related.

"Try and pay attention, there is bound to be more of those things" Ashley cut in.

"Well in my opinion those things are Geth." No sooner had I finished my sentence but three Geth came from the dig site weapons blazing. "Me and my big mouth." I muttered to myself unaware I had left the comlink open.

"So you have a big mouth Carolus? Good to know" Shepard added as me and Ashley both took cover behind a small rock formation. I looked over my pistol quickly before popping out and letting out a few rounds at the nearest Geth, my shots tore through its shields leaving it vulnerable for the others who promptly took care of it. The remaining two Geth took cover and I used the opportunity to move closer making sure I kept myself as low to the ground as possible making myself as small a target as possible. As I reached the closest Geth I tried my biotics again, I imagined throwing the Geth across the ground and threw my right arm forwards and just like that a blue aura flowed from my body and a ball of the blue energy fired from my right hand and slamming it into a nearby rock. Before I could make sure it was down for the count, my barrier began warping as it deflected shots going from the other Geth now behind me. I mentally cursed myself for not paying attention to the fact that the second one could now shoot me from the safety of his rocky fortress without getting hit from Shepard and company.

I responded almost immediately spinning on my heel and letting loose with my pistol, my shots rang out until a loud beeping and a sizzling noise began blaring from my firearm, it had overheated but this was not as disastrous as it should have been as Ashley had moved up and finished it off after my shots and tore several holes through its midsection. Kaidan had made his way over to the Geth I had thrown earlier and put a few more rounds into it to make sure is was down for the count.

"I feel like I should say something like, I hope that's the last of them or How could this day get any worse." I let out a sigh as I turned back to the group.

"Don't say that!" Shepard yelled at me as she cut my legs out from under me with a swift kick to the back of my legs. I fell to the ground with a thud my armour absorbing the impact quite handly.

"Ouch. That was very paragon of you Shepard." I said in reply to my now rather unfortunate situation.

"Paragon?" She asked in reply clearly unsure as to what I was getting at. While that wasn't overly surprising given it was a reference from my world or at least my world when I was awake, I am still not sure exactly what this all is. "Williams is this the dig site? I don't see what we could call a beacon" Shepard stated as she walked towards the centre of the site.

"It must have been moved commander" The gunnery chief replied while looking over the now empty site.

"By who? Our side or the Geth?" Kaidan chimed in as he pushed his way past me as I picked myself off the floor. _I get the feeling he doesn't like me much,_ I thought to myself as I brushed off my armour and began walking up the hill at the rear of the site. _Okay knowing where to go is great, hopefully I can cut out a lot of useless chatter._ I mused to myself over the fact of essentially knowing the future, I could be a god in this world, the thought sent a shiver down my spine.

"Change of plans Shepard" A voice that was distinctly different than my fellow humans. "There is a small spaceport ahead, I will meet you there."

"Roger that." Came the clear military drilled response from Shepard.

"Who was that?" I asked knowing full well by now that I had just heard the words of a walking dead man or rather walking dead Turian name Nihlus.

"An ally, he has moved ahead of us to secure the area." She replied

"By himself!?" I retorted knowing full well that it was his own idea and preferred method of action. Not waiting for Shepard's response I take off up the hill and around the corner. _Could I catch Saren in the act now? Could I save Nihlus?_ It seemed so trivial to just allow myself to go through the motions, let Nihlus die fight alongside Shepard, kill some Geth, defuse some bombs and trigger a beacon. Why should I be content with that? Let's throw a wrench in the universe's plans.

"Carolus where are you going?" Shepard's displeasure was clear from her tone of voice coming through my comm system. I cut her off, I didn't have the time to explain what I was doing nor did I have the desire to tell her I knew the future and was currently attempting to change it, by hopefully shooting one indoctrinated spectre in the back of the head.

As I made my way through the burning landscape several Geth were in the process of mounting still living people unto those horrific spikes. _Dragon's Teeth_ I thought to myself as I put a few shots into those closest to me, not stopping to see if I did any damage I kept running towards the spaceport. I heard gunfire coming from the Geth I had shot at but it wasn't aimed at me, Shepard and the others must have chased after me and are now having to deal with the ones I left behind.

As I reached the hill overlooking the spaceport I saw them, Nihlus was looking over the flaming wreckage and blasted area of the spaceport, and coming up behind him Saren. I had made it, now I just had to decide how to deal with the situation that I knew was about to unfold before me. I began running scenarios through my mind, do I just start taking shots at Saren hoping to force him to leave if not kill him? Do I let Nihlus die and then make a move? Sacrifice Nihlus to gain ground on Saren and end him before he can lead the Geth on a path of destruction? This was pointless I could argue what to do in this situation forever action was required. I steeled myself and made my way down the slope. I found myself clenching and unclenching my free hand over and over again as I began to quicken my pace, steadying my breathing focusing on what I needed to do. Saren is a trained spectre and one of the greatest agents that has ever existed and here I was a man who wouldn't remember his own name without the computer in his head, no formal combat training that I could recall and no idea how I ended up here, but I did know one thing. Saren needs to die.

I made my way to the spaceport pistol in hand I must have looked like a madman, here I was in full armour pistol drawn dried white 'blood' staining my body walking up to two of the most dangerous and well trained soldiers in the galaxy. Nihlus was the first to see me, while Saren had his back to me, he must have noticed Nihlus's puzzled look and turned to face me.

"So one of the humans survived." Saren quipped as he looked me over quickly reaching for his gun as he saw mine in hand. I brought my pistol level and prepared to fire. Once again I found myself a passenger in own body as went to pull the trigger. I was brought back to reality as a sharp pain shot through my right shoulder. I dropped my gun, the pain shooting through my body I grimaced as I looked up and saw Nihlus had shot me. I dropped to my knees struggling to breathe I looked down and saw a dark red liquid ooze from my shoulder and chest.

"Saren" I managed to say in between long gasps for air. _Where I am hit?_ I thought to myself as I looked over my surroundings, everything was going fuzzy colours were fading in and out voices were just static. Nihlus lowered himself to my level, he was trying to talk to me but I couldn't make sense of it and then he just seemed to fall. I looked up and to my horror I saw my pistol, Saren was holding it my body began to react to the pain now shooting through my right side.

 **Medi-Gel applied, condition stable, secondary implants online.**

"So it seems one of you survived." Saren was looking down on me his look of what I assumed was pride it was making me sick. "It seems my new partner failed to remove you. No matter this works out better." He tossed my gun at my feet and turned to leave.

"How do you know me" I wheezed out my response seemed to catch his attention.

"You don't remember what you're here for?" He looked towards the sky, this was my chance my feeling in my arm was coming back I reached for my pistol it was painful to move I was using huge amounts of concentration just not to wince in pain. "She told me you and your team knew about me and." He paused seemingly contemplating what to say next. "Lets just say I know a lot about you Carolus, still watching your shuttle explode in atmosphere was greatly satisfying, how you survived that. Well credit where credit is due but now you can help me." I cut him off I brought my pistol up and fired three shots. The first and second impacted on his barrier but the third hit home. He growled in pain as he clutched his face in one of his talons. Before I could fire again he seemed to pounce on me, as he began bringing his fists down on my face before standing and repeatedly kicking me. Every blow felt like someone was bringing a hammer down on me, my already damaged body began convulsing as the odd stream of blood dripped from my mouth. I had no idea how long his burst of rage lasted it felt like an eternity before he finally relented and threw me into the crates stacked up towards the spaceport.

This time the pain was too much, it seemed to override every thought in my mind and every intake of air felt like I was inhaling glass shards.

"Bastard." I managed to hiss between fits of coughing up more blood. "I'm not done with you." However even as I finished that statement I felt my body give out on me and everything just went limp.

Everything hurt, as I lay on the ground struggling to move I saw another person make a run for it only for his limp body to come crashing down next to me. His face was expressionless I recognized the body next to me as the dock worker who was running the smuggling ring in the game. I wanted to look away but no matter how I tried I couldn't bring my head away; I couldn't tell if it was because of the pain I was in or the guilt that because of me he was dead. As I lay there I forced myself to close my eyes and let the pain flow through my body.

 **Greeting all Lord Castor Here,**

 **This took me a lot longer than I had intended. You see the thing is I had to fight like fifty ninjas...no scratch that fifty robot pirate ninjas from space...Okay their not buying it new plan!**

 **Okay being a historian in training my life can and often does get lost in academic journals. Never fear however, I have already begun work on the third chapter, hopefully this one gets as much love as the first. Thank all of those who Favorited and followed this story, and to those who didn't and don't thanks for viewing anyway.**

 **As always thank you TREBOR117, for proof reading this and dealing with my pestering. Go read his stories guys go do it.**

 **PS. In the time it took me to write this chapter I got that one year older...My life is fading away arrgggghhhhhh.**

 **CYA NEXT TIME!**


	3. Questions, faith, bombs and a bad trip

Chapter 3 Questions, faith, bombs and a bad trip.

 **Shepard**

"This is why you don't let people take off on their own!" She was pissed, Carolus had taken off a few minutes' prior, seemingly kicking the Geth hornets' nest in the process, to make things worse the Geth had done something to the colonists, impaling them on some sort of spikes and what they became… She didn't want to think about it as she put down another one of the former colonists down.

"Shepard I think that's the last of them." Kaidan said as he made his way towards her. "Carolus didn't even stop to take these guys. Do you think they got him?" He asked, flipping over one of the former colonists. She looked around, there was a lot of damage and dead civilians but she couldn't pinpoint any that looked armoured enough to be Carolus. _Civilians never stood a chance._ She thought to herself feeling a rising level of anger of what had happened on this once peaceful colony, much like her own childhood. The thoughts of her stolen childhood on Mindoir came to mind, the horrors she had witnessed, the screams, knowing those will never leave her no matter how much times passes.

"At least it's over for them now." She sighed as she beckoned the others to follow her towards the spaceport. They passed a few housing blocks as they made their way to the spaceport, perhaps a few people managed to seek shelter, but it was hard to think the Geth would let anyone escape, their systemic approach to their attack from the disabling of communication to the ambush of the colonies defence forces made escape seem unlikely, and she had other priorities right now. After a short walk the spaceport came into full view, signs of battle were evident.

"More flaming wreckage." Ashley muttered. "It used to be such a lively place." Shepard looked over and saw what seemed to be another dead civilian, but something was different about this one.

"Oh no." Kaidan said as he picked up his pace to pass Shepard. "Commander, its Nihlus." His tone clearly one of remorse. As she made her way over to the fallen Spectre feelings of remorse were far from her mind. While the Geth had been putting up a fight she hadn't felt like she had been pushed yet, in fact the mission seemed almost routine despite the loss of Jenkins, soldiers die she had learned to accept this from her service Akuze she knew death could come for any soldier at any time in many ways she had already come to accept her life wouldn't have happy ending where she would have grown old, death on a battlefield somewhere was what she had accepted. The feelings that were gnawing at her where how did the Geth manage to kill a highly respected and skilled Spectre? As Kaidan looked over the second fallen member of the ground team and Ashley walked the perimeter she saw something familiar.

"Is that Carolus's pistol?" She asked Kaidan pointing to the pistol lying on the ground not a couple of meters from the body.

"I am not sure Commander, I didn't get a good look at his equipment given the fighting, but it doesn't look like any sidearm I have ever seen." He replied reaching over to it and tossing it at her. Shepard looked over the weapon, it certainly was strange, it was at least a good one third longer than her sidearm yet somehow felt no heavier than her own.

"It must pack a big punch judging from the size of it." She spoke not really directing the statement at anyone. "If his pistol is here he couldn't have gotten far."

"Commander, the weapon that was used to kill Nihlus was not Geth by design, the wounds are not consistent with what we have seen so far. I don't want to jump to any conclusions but." He stopped seemingly contemplating what to add.

"Spit it out Lieutenant." She ordered she wasn't interested in half statements at this point, enough people had died today and with Carolus's disappearing act she was not in the mood for Kaidan's beating around the bush.

"Well I am not a doctor but the wounds are consistent with larger calibre pistol rounds, like the one you are currently holding." His voice trailed off towards the end, clearly not liking where his train of thought was heading. "We told him Nihlus was here, we told him he was alone." He looked around clearly distressed, rubbing the sides of his temples the day's events were catching up to him his L2's seemingly causing him problems. "We knew nothing about him, he came from out of nowhere according to the Gunnery Chief, fully armed and equipped. Perhaps he was a trap." She thought about that for a moment but before she could respond Ashley got her attention.

"Commander over here, its Carolus!"

 **Carolus**

"Get up." The voice was not so much a voice more of a thought, I ignore it what would be the point. "Get up." Again the voice calls again I ignore its directions. Why should I? This isn't a dream the pain throughout my body had convinced me of this, no dream no matter how horrid or twisted resulted in this level of pain. How I was on Eden Prime or even in this universe was beyond me and how the hell did Saren know who I was? I don't even know who I am.

Carolus is supposedly my name, but it has no connection to me. A person's name is supposed to invoke emotions and memories a name is a powerful thing. Those who go down in history past down great deeds or terrors that should or couldn't ever be forgotten, but along with their deeds of valour or horror are their names.

"Latin" A different voice this time a calmer one almost delicate. Carolus? Latin? What is it or they trying to say? Carolus I remember it's has a Latinisation…. Charles, was that my name? Charles…. still no connection. Rex means king Charles King, was that my name? For the first time since I awoke I felt a connection, Charles King, Charles King. I repeat the name it fills me with emotions, pride and anger being the most overpowering. Charles King it felt nice to feel at home.

"Get up" The first voice said again this time more clearly and with a hint of demand in its tone. I opened my eyes, and was greeted with quite the sight Kaidan and Ashley where standing over me weapons in hand, I looked to my side and was greeted by the deep red eyes of Commander Shepard.

"Commander we have to stop meeting like this." I said trying to sit myself up, to my surprise the pain was minimal. Her face was difficult to read I could see concern but something else was more prevalent anger. "Oh, you must be pissed that I took off by myself huh." She looked at me and tossed me my pistol, I fumbled the catch but before I could look over it in detail she brought her first into the side of my head.

"Don't you ever take off like that while under my command." She said slowly shaking the wrist of the hand she hit me with. I looked over at the others who seemed tense. Nihlus the thought hit me like a train.

"Shepard, I am so sorry, I tried to help him. There was another Turian, I couldn't stop him." I was choking on my words I knew what was coming and I did what? I just walked up to them gun in hand, what was I doing?

"Another Turian? We can talk about it later." She replied offering a hand up. "We have to get a move on we still haven't found our objective we can come back for his body later." She added as she hoisted me off the ground. I gave my pistol the once over and followed the others.

Almost instantly we rounded to corner and were under fire from Geth while Kaidan and Ashley began putting rounds towards the Geth Shepard began work on her Omni-tool, the Geth furthest from us shields failed and I drew my pistol and began firing, my movements were smooth as I advanced towards the group of Geth generating a barrier around myself while firing as often as I could without overheating the weapon. Shepard was working away at their shields and weapons with tech attacks making the clean-up for the rest of us relatively straight forwards. The first group fell without much a fight but I knew that fight up the walkway to mobile platform would be quite a struggle. As we made our way down towards the walkway the world once again opened up into a blaze of fire.

"Shit how many of those guys are on that one walkway Jesus." I shouted as I signalled the others behind me to take cover behind the railing. "We have to get past them, it seems to be the only way forwards." Shepard stuck her head over the railing and just as quickly she brought it back down.

"They are really dug in down there." Shepard said. If this was the game I would just run across to the walkway and kill them with bug bites after dealing with the destroyer that would kamikaze towards me, finding myself in the situation I had played through a hundred times regardless of my experience in the matter I felt horribly unprepared.

 **Stop worrying…**

The hell? I thought to myself has my HUD began flashing the message.

 **We got this.**

As the message faded so did my body.

"Carolus?" I heard Ashley's voice come over my Omni-Tool.

"Yea so apparently I have a tactical clock, so I am going to go over towards the robots that want to kill us now and get you guys an opening."

"Carolus I swear if you leave us here I will kill you." I was unsure if Shepard was kidding or serious, and I really didn't want to find out.

As I made my way over to the walkway the only thoughts running through my head where, any second now this is going to wear off and they are going to waste me, Was Shepard kidding? And who the hell send those messages to my HUD who are they? I quickened the pace and took cover behind some metal behind the last group of Geth.

"Shepard get ready to do whatever it is you do best." No sooner had I said that I fired at the rear of the Geth. The panic was immediate most of the Geth turned to face the new incoming fire while I saw the others run into better positions and pick off a few others. As I continued to provide support from the rear I saw the destroyer begin charging towards me.

"Of course it came after me!" I yelled to myself as I got out from my latest piece of cover at that moment I felt power gathering in my free hand. I still have no idea how this works but I am not complaining, I thought to myself as I threw my arm forwards a large blue ball of blue energy shot from my hand and slammed into the destroyers left leg taking it clean off, it fell to the ground with a loud thud and its shotgun landed at my feet, the white liquid began flowing onto the floor as it resumed its advanced by slowly clawing its way towards me. It was a sad sight the rest of the world seemed to fade from sight all I could see was this sad thing, it must know that I could now finish it at my leisure it doesn't even have a gun anymore, why does it persist? What is the point? My thoughts were cut short as a few shots got a tad to close and snapped me back into the world.

I grabbed the shotgun the destroyer had dropped at my feet as it had fallen forwards and I pumped a few rounds into it before ducking behind cover once more. A few moments passed where I would roll from cover to cover slowly making my way towards the others taking the remaining Geth out along the way. Sandwiched between myself and the trained soldiers was too much for the Geth and after the last few Geth fell to the ground with a satisfying thud the group was reunited.

"Nice to see you didn't just take off." Kaidan added with the faintest hint of venom in his voice. I ignored him and just turned back towards the platform and began walking towards it.

"I've got enough to worry about." I let out with a sigh as I left them behind. I was convinced at this point that this wasn't some sort of dream, I was here as to how I was here I didn't have the time to worry about given what was currently going on, between the Geth and Saren knowing who I was I wasn't particularly feeling like I thought I would if I ever found myself here. I had always thought to be here and fight alongside Shepard and the Normandy crew would be an amazing experience, hell knows why I thought getting shot at every other second would be fun.

"Carl." The voice snapped me out of my brooding, just for once I would like to be able to finish a line of thought in this universe.

"Carl?" I asked in response as Shepard jogged her way up to me.

"Yea, I think it is a bit easier than Carolus." She said letting out a faint smile. I didn't really mind it seeing as how Carolus still didn't feel right.

"How about Charles? I kind of prefer that I think anyway." I returned the smile even if it was somewhat forced I felt I should at least try to seem less troubled around her.

"Charles It suits you, well better than Carolus no offence." She replied gently slapping me on the back. "Ignore Kaidan it has been a rough day. Let's go get this day over with and then we can have a little nice chat about what happened, I promise I won't judge you until I hear you out just don't take off again on your own." She paused for a moment. "That's how we lose people."

"Thanks." I said knowing full well how her day was going to end with one hell of a headache. We spend the rest of the time in silence exchanging the odd look as we waited for Ashley and Kaidan. The two marines were talking amongst themselves I could probably have listened in but I had my own thoughts to worry about, once the team was ready we set off from the platform towards what I knew would be one mad dash against time, but before that with the death of the dock worker I had to drop Saren's name. Without the dockworkers testimony I shuddered to think what events would fail to play out, Garrus's investigation of Saren for one and that was kind of a thing I want to happen.

"Shepard, while we have a moment with us all here, I need to tell you something." I decided this needed to happen now, if I was to die in the fire fight I knew was about to happen Saren would get away scot free.

"I am listening Charles" she said as she signalled the other two to do the same. Ashley seemed keen quickly following Shepard's signal while Kaidan's sudden glare at my direction felt quite a bit more intimidating.

"When I took off earlier, I managed to meet Nihlus." I took a short breath before continuing feeling a growing level of guilt brewing within me. "There was a second Turian, Nihlus called him Saren, they were talking they seemed to get along, I let my guard down." The others eyes were watching my movements carefully trying to determine if what I was saying was true I imagined. "I turned away for a second just a moment but." I stopped again the guilt of my complete incompetence to do anything to prevent Nihlus's death. "Saren grabbed my pistol from my hand and used it to Kill Nihlus. I didn't know what was happening before I could react he jumped me my pistol must have overheated so he set himself on me. I fought him as well as I could but I never had a chance, I don't know why me let me live but if something were to happen to me."

"Nothing is going to happen to you." Shepard spoke up, Ashley followed

"I've seen enough people die today. Not one more." Her conviction was clear, it was reassuring. Kaidan said nothing seemingly contemplating what I had just said, while for the most part I just told a lie I was confident in my ability to sell the tale, besides even if he doesn't buy it I only need to get the ball on the right track.

"That's the thing about platitudes they get old pretty quick once you've seen the galaxy." I replied with a small smile. "Anyway, just so you know this Saren is one nasty SOB." As I finished the platform arrived at its destination my HUD began blaring all kinds of warnings about the bombs I knew where scattered about.

"Shepard seems the Geth have deployed explosives nearby they are set to detonate in a few minutes!" I bellowed as I drew my pistol and ran towards where my radar said the first was located.

"Bastards must be trying to destroy evidence." Kaidan added as he rushed over to me. "How did you know there where bombs so quickly?" He added as he crouched next to the explosive.

"I have an implant that scans for threats, how I found Ashley earlier, it located the Geth." Kaidan's shocked look was somewhat expected I mean sure people have radar in this game, hell Radar isn't exactly Sci-Fi level technology but perhaps having it implanted into your body was somewhat shocking. "No I have no idea how it works so don't ask." I quickly added as he snapped out of his shock and set about disarming the bomb.

"For Geth the firewalls on these are pretty slack." Kaidan said as Ashley and Shepard caught up.

"How many of these do you think there are?" Shepard asked as Geth began appearing and opening fire on our clustered group.

"Don't know about you guys but how about we don't have this conversation huddled around the large explosive." Ashley quipped as we all ducked for various pieces of cover.

"Probably a good idea." I replied as my HUD began flooding me with information.

 **Enemy Contacts fifteen Geth units detected. Three more explosive devices detected.**

 **Neural Network running at emergency levels.**

 **ALERT Bio-Tech implants at 30% analysing….**

 **Complete Implants are substituting organic function due to high level of tissue damage.**

 **Advise caution. In other words, try not to get shot.**

The last part cut me off, this HUD gets more and more confusing every time it says anything.

"My systems estimate the Geth at fifteen units and three more bombs to disarm." Shepard nodded a reply before popping up and firing a burst from her assault rifle at some of the Geth.

"We can't sit here and get bogged in a fire fight we have to get to those explosives." Shepard ordered as she took down a Geth with a tech attack. "Charles can you get behind them again or at least draw some of them away from the three of us while we work our way towards the next one?" Without responding my clock activated and I ran towards the Geth. There wasn't much in the way of cover that could reliably cover all my flanks so I settled on nearest support beam between the two largest groups of Geth, while the others fired sporadically at the Geth I hatched a down right ridiculous plan.

"What am I thinking, this is a terrible plan." I muttered to myself knowing my options were limited, I pulled the shotgun I had taken from the destroyer earlier and held it in my left arm while I wielded my pistol in my right arm and prepared myself for what was surely going to be a cluster fuck of bullets. I had no idea how strong I was but I was fairly certain I could at least fire both weapons without blowing my arms out of their sockets maybe not accurately but I just needed to cause a distraction. I ran towards the nearest Geth and placed my still cloaked shotgun to its head and pulled the trigger while firing my pistol towards the group closest to Shepard and the others. To my surprise the kick on the shotgun didn't completely ruin my arm and shoulder as the round seemingly evaporated the Geth's head. Its friends were quick to react and quickly began switching their fire from the others to me. Okay stage one get their attention now would be a really good time to develop a stage two.

This was the way I played Mass Effect, get close and murder everything, usually I played Sentinel and I had Tech-Armour to absorb the damage and I took barrier as an extra ability to absorb even more damage. Seeing as I seemed to have only barrier I watched as the Geth's fire quickly started draining my defences. I didn't have time to look back and see how the others were doing I could hear the gun fire but I had no idea if my mad dash into no man's land was really paying diffidence. I kept firing away ducking behind half cover as Geth from both my front and rear began focusing on me. I had taken a few of them out with a combination of reckless gun slinging, but the continual fire of the shotgun one handed was beginning to really take a strain on my body I could no longer feel my left arm, I was just pulling the trigger on impulse rather than conscious thought. I quickly began to re-evaluate my situation I couldn't keep taking fire from two directions like this, I needed to get to cover, and just like that another bad idea entered my head. I ducked behind the nearest support beam to stop the fire from one side and limit the other, but I couldn't stay here as the Geth would simply advance towards me and I would have nowhere to go, I fired a few more rounds from my pistol before placing both my weapons away and then I ran towards one of the containers lining the walkway I quickly used my biotics to help me jump on top of it and then I jumped again reaching towards the cables that crossed the walkways and surrounding structures.

As I crashed against the duel cables I quickly hooked under my armpits on the cables and lowered myself onto my hands and began monkey swinging my way towards the other side. Not having feeling in my left arm made it quite nerve racking but at least I was no longer sandwiched between two Geth squads. I was just hanging in the open like an idiot. After a few nervous moments of swinging my way along the cables while feeling Geth rounds impact on my back I finally managed to jump down to the opposite walkway from where I had started with a satisfying crash. A quick check of my HUD revealed just how close I had come to death, my biotic barrier had failed and my shields how dropped to less than 10%. I crawled my way behind the nearest container and radioed Shepard.

"Please tell me you guys can handle the rest." My one arm I could still feel was sore beyond words and my breathing was irregular as I began to gather myself after my moments of madness.

"Charles, when I said could you maybe distract them I didn't mean for you to literally stand in the middle of a Geth family reunion firing from the hip like a god damn action hero." I let out a sigh as Shepard's clearly upset rant continued. "And for the love of all that is holy why did you think swinging like Tarzan across metal cables like a sitting duck was your best method of escape!"

"So I will take that as a yes you can handle the rest?" I responded while watching my shields recharge and assessing the ridiculous amount of messages my HUD was displaying. It seemed my tactical clock had a rather large cool down once used, even now it was still recharging but I had noticed that it didn't seem to have a time limit on its cloaking effects, I would have to test that later.

A few moments more passed while I recovered from my ordeal before my radio went off again.

"Alright Carolus you can come out from hiding now." Kaidan's voice was annoyingly patronising.

"Does that mean I won the hide and seek championships? "I quipped back walking out from behind my container rotating my left shoulder as I tried to get it to wake up.

"Yes Charles you are hide and seek champion but we are the treasure hunt champions." Shepard's added as I made my way over to them. They had cleared out the lower level where the beacon was and were proudly standing in front of it, the bodies of dead husks and Geth were everywhere, in the game there was maybe ten maximum enemies in this whole zone yet judging from the body count we had fought through at least twice that number maybe even three times to get here. The thought that this reality had more enemies by those kinds of numbers made me uneasy this was the first mission in the game and I barely made it through, well that might be because of a serious of bad decision, reckless heroics and moments of zombie like status yep that's what I will blame it on.

As I approached the group I found Shepard radioing the Normandy of pick up and I made sure to keep my distance from the beacon as I really didn't want to set it off. It might be a good idea to trigger it and imbed myself with the Normandy crew however given my performance over the past few hours maybe that was a bad idea, perhaps I could just find a calm quiet part of the galaxy and relax? Find a nice Asari live a normal life for the next few years and then. I stopped myself there how could I even suggest doing such a thing with what I know how could I justify sitting on my ass while billions of people die billions of people I might just might be able to save. Is that the sort of person I am? A coward who only thinks of himself? Even if it is who I was before I woke up here it is not what I want to be now.

 **Beacon Detected, activating data mine.**

Before I could react the beacon lit up in a green sort of glow before my armour started doing the same.

"That can't be good." Before anyone could react I was violently ripped into the air in front of the beacon. The pain was unbelievable I found myself screaming and shaking uncontrollably.

 **Stop fighting it.**

 **Let it come.**

 **Stop being such a bitch.**

Three voices, three different voices were talking to me, but not from the crew from inside my head. I felt a hand grab onto me, I managed to turn my head enough to see Shepard trying to pull me down only for her to get dragged up as well. Before I could do anything else images began flooding my mind, the warning. I understood it I could see it all the Reapers destroying everything the death, pain and suffering right in front of me as if I was there in the thick of it. Brave soldiers fight and dying, mothers and their children being taken, but then something else. A human child in a building on fire her family dead around her the corpse of her mother covering the child as Batarian's laughed, and then they find her, she screams at them throwing punches and kicks at her family's butchers but it's useless she is young, powerless but then one of the Batarian's heads explode a man I don't see him well he kills them all I couldn't quite make it out the images not quite taking focus. He says something to her, something I couldn't make out. The man leaves and the girl goes back to hiding under her lifeless mother. She holds back the tears not wanting to be found. She is alone again. Then I feel myself getting pulled backwards I find myself flying through the air back on Eden Prime I crash against the floor and Shepard lands to my side unconscious. I scramble to my feet Kaidan and Ashley screaming at us, I can't make out what they are saying. I manage to utter a reply.

"It's nothing, it's nothing, it's nothing." Each time slightly weaker than the last as I stumble forwards a few steps before the darkness claims me.

 **) About time we fixed the network, keeping this idiot alive was almost impossible. (**

 **(It seems he doesn't recall anything before the crash, we will have to see if the memories are still in the network, if they are lost this could be problematic.)**

 ***I'll run the sweeps you two can answer any questions he has, just try not to be on hard on him we still need his co-operation. ***

* * *

 **Hey there one and all Lord Castor here. This one took a bit longer due to falling on exams, however I am now exam free and with nothing else to do I will be working on the new chapters.**

 **The second reason these take so long is simple, grammar and spell checking, I now have a small group of three or so people to do this for me, so shouldn't take as long from now on. I can't bring myself to publish a new chapter without an outside party checking it, I am just not confident in my skills and I don't want people to try and read through it if it isn't up to scratch.**

 **And lastly I have made a twitter account just to post updates of chapter progress and you guys can ask questions and review there if you want. I promise to at least look at your concerns :P You can find the link to the twitter account on my fanfic profile!**

 **Cya next time.**


	4. The Disappointment That Was Me

As I opened my eyes a something became quite obvious, I was standing in a hallway made of mirrors.

"First I wake up on Eden Prime and now I am in a fun house?" I quipped to myself, taking a quick look around I saw I was no longer in my armour, I was wearing a plain white jumpsuit. "Okay maybe I am insane, that would definitely explain what has been happening to me today." My body felt light the bruises and injuries of the day were completely pain free had it all been a dream?

As I made my way forwards the corridor of mirrors was disturbing to say the least, the corridor was quite cramped with maybe enough room for two people to walk shoulder to shoulder. I was holding my hands out in front of me, constantly probing for any change in the room not wanting to smash into a wall.

"Who made this mad house?" I muttered to myself really starting to lose my patience with the nonsense that was this place.

) **We did(**

I spun around looking for the source of the voice but saw nothing.

"Where am I? What the hell is going on?" I bellowed wishing I could confront the source of the voice. Just like that the hallway of glass exploded into millions or shards and the floor vanished beneath me.

"Holy shit!" I screamed flaying my limbs around.

( **Quit faffing about you're not falling, you can't die here)**

The second voice was a quite a bit deeper, more grizzled it gave off the image of a tough, old soldier, who had seen his fair share of the world. And sure enough as he said I wasn't in fact falling I was just sort of floating in the air. As I stabled myself two doorways of light opened and two people were silhouetted against it.

"Okay, am I dead or what?" I murmured as I brought my hand up to cover my eyes from the blinding light.

) **Carolus that is your name in this place. It was given to you** **when you agreed to be here**.(

( **You are longer a part of your universe you are now a part of ours.** )

"Well whatever you say hallucinations, who am I to argue when all this is so standard and not out of the ordinary at all." I replied as I steadied myself in the abyss that I was now surrounded by. "I mean there I was on a planet from a video game just going on with the flow you know, except I wasn't I was running, fighting, shooting and generally confused with a HUD embedded into my brain!" I yelled towards the two figures, expecting some kind of reaction some sort of reassurance that I was either dead or having a dream.

) **Okay Carolus let us help you. We talked you through this once before we can do so again(.**

I could now determine this first shadow was a woman. Her voice was smoother but still gave of the voice of someone who was distinguished and full of confidence. The lights behind the two faded and the dark abyss lit up into a white light before reforming as some sort of conference room before I could utter another word A chair appeared beneath me and hesitantly took a seat. I could see the two figures clearly now and I couldn't believe my eyes.

"You, I know who you are." I stuttered as my mind began racing again these people they were Shepard.

"Well that's a start." Muttered the male Shepard as he took a seat on the opposite end of the table that had finished materialising, it was a good size table three metres in length or there about. He looked tired his movements were minimalistic moving no further than he had to and any point, his jet black hair was short his goatee clean and crisp, he had a scar that ran the length of his face from the top right to the left hand side of bottom lip. He was wearing the leather jacket from the Mass Effect three, along with a pair of denim jeans. The other person was as I had assumed a woman she was taller than the Shepard I had met on Eden Prime, or at least thought I had met once again I found myself questioning my reality and what had and was happening. She had dark red hair that flowed freely just below her shoulders her face had a fair complexion, if I had to guess perhaps Mediterranean in descent she walked past the other Shepard and ran her fingers along the table as she stopped next to me and pulled up a chair.

"Hello Carolus. My name."

"Alexandra." I spoke softly I recognised her now she was a Shepard from one of my Mass Effect games.

"So you remember something at least." She smiled at me before quickly grabbing my closest hand and crushing it in her vice like grip.

"Jesus Christ!" The pain was immense with just one hand she was now twisting my whole arm and slowly forcing my face down into the table.

"Nope sorry no Jesus here." She said as she let me go. "But don't interrupt me again." Her devilish grin snapping me out of my daze from what had just happened.

"Yes ma'am." I quickly replied as I shook my arm. Alexandra was one of my Sentinels she was a good person at heart, but walked a fine line do good by her and her friends and your save, annoy her or do her wrong and well things got interesting.

"So Carolus, how much do you remember? Do you remember him?" She asked with her devilish grin still plastered on her face it was more terrifying than any Geth I had encountered early in the day. I looked up at the man still sat at the end of the table I looked at his face, I knew this man I just needed a name. "Oh god, you have got to be kidding me." It hit me like a truck this wasn't just any Shepard from my not so modest total of fifty-two play through, he was the original man. "Sovereign." I finally said, I had a thing for naming my Shepard's interesting names Titan, Zoltan, Xylene, I remember being in shock during Sovereign's reveal as a reaper in the first game.

"Well nice to see I haven't been forgotten in all those other Shepard's cooked up. I would say it's nice to meet you but we already have, you have just gone and forgotten." His face remained unchanged, his tone was flat no sense of emotion he gave me nothing to gauge his true feelings with.

"What a touching moment this is; I am really glad we got to redo this first time meeting." Alexandra sat back down in her chair her grin had somehow morphed itself from one of a psycho to well a normal smile. "You know the first meeting didn't go so smoothly." She giggled "You were running around screaming like a mad man. What is going on? Who are you? What is that thing?" She slapped my back, it hurt she was ridiculously strong it didn't even seem like she was trying. "So Carolus lets' see if we can get through this quickly, now I am going to talk and you are going to sit and listen once we finish you can ask three count them three questions." She said bringing up three fingers. "Okay here we go." I got a feeling I should do as she says.

 **Shepard**

As she opened her eyes the first feeling she had was one of immense pain her head felt worse than the last time she was waking up from shore leave. As she sat herself up a familiar voice came into perception Dr Chakwas.

"Commander? Can you hear me? Commander?" by the sounds of it she had been trying to get her attention for quite a while.

"Yes doctor I am up." She replied bringing her hands to cover her eyes the light of the room was bright. "How long was I out?"

"Around ten hours. You had us worried their commander." Chakwas replied "How are you feeling?"

"Worse than my last shore leave." She mumbled as she brought her hands off her eyes, as she looked around the room she saw two service men standing guard over the bed to her right.

"Charles?" She asked now finally being able to see clearly. Chakwas looked over to the other bed, while he wasn't a serviceman he was still a patient it seemed.

"If you are referring to Carolus over there, it seems the beacon reacted to him or at least that is the best we can tell, sadly we will never get the chance to find out if he is what set it off the beacon exploded once it grabbed you both." She walked over to grab a data pad and quickly flicked through it. "The engineering crew have been trying to determine what could have set it off. Their best guess is that all the tech in your friend here set it off. But I have to say commander I have never seen this level of modification of a person." Before she could finish the door to the med bay opened and the two guards left and a friendly face came into view.

"Doctor, how is our XO doing." Captain Anderson asked with a wide smile on his face.

"By all physical standards she is fine, I detected some unusual brainwaves abnormal beta waves and she displayed rapid eye movement while unconscious, but those can be attributed to intense dreaming." Chakwas addressed them both trying to satisfy the Captains answer while also reassuring her that she was going to be fine.

"I saw I don't know what I saw. Death. Destruction. Nothings really clear." It was all kind of vague to her but as a solider she knows what death looks like, what she saw was horrific even though it only came in parts.

"I will add that to my report, but aside from that you're free to leave Commander."

"Thank you doctor." She replied as Anderson looked over at Charles.

"Doctor could you give us a moment of privacy please." Anderson's smile was now gone his face had become like steel.

"Certainly, I will be in the mess if you need me." And with that she left leaving only Anderson, herself and an unconscious Charles. After a moment Anderson spoke up.

"I am not going to lie commander, things looked bad. Nihlus is dead. The beacon was destroyed and Geth are invading. The council is going to want answers." The situation was clearly riding heavily on her old mentor.

"I did nothing wrong hopefully the council will see that." She was right she had done nothing wrong she had followed her mission but the beacon had failed and for whatever reason it may have failed all she knew was it wasn't her or her teams fault.

"I'll stand behind you Commander, but that's not why I am here. It's him and his statement about another Turian. Saren. Saren is a spectre one of the best a living legend in the eyes of many but if he is working with the Geth that means he has gone rouge. A rouge Spectre is dangerous and Saren in particular he hates humans."

"Why does he hate humans?" She asked noticing a slight change in Anderson demeanour how could the council promote someone with such racism of an allied race?

"The same reason most of those that hate us do. Thinks were growing too fast. Taking over the galaxy. He has allied himself with a synthetic race and the beacon was the key. Did you see anything something that could give us something to go on?" Anderson was certainly tense now something was bothering him greatly, but she was also concerned over what had happened in the mission.

"Besides the dream I had, nothing sir I am sorry." She looked over at the unconscious Charles again.

"You're worried about him?" Anderson asks clearly noticing the glances she was giving Charles. "Chakwas insures me, he is physically fine hell if the reports from the ground team are to accurate he should be at deaths door his body has a truly mutant ability to heal. I will have Chakwas give you one more look over, get some rest Shepard we will talk with him when he wakes up." And with that Shepard was alone with Charles as Anderson left to fetch the doctor.

"Two people already died on this mission, between the Geth and the beacon you are the most normal thing to have happened you are going to give me some answers." She was tired now and decided to lay back for a bit.

 **Carolus**

As I looked over at the two Shepard's all I could do was sit in silence and hope what I was about to hear not cause me to have a heart attack.

"Okay so let's start." Alexandra said as she put her feet on the table forcing me to take my hands off and put them down by my sides I was as stiff as a board. "Okay so first of all, you are dead." My face went pale before noticing her smile reappear. "Just kidding you're not dead we approached you in your universe because you had knowledge of our universes and all possible outcomes well maybe not all but your knowledge made you a high value target. The other version of us you should be able to meet her soon enough she is a big old softy but best tech head I ever met. Well she is another me so of course she's good." Her smile grew as she looked over at Sovereign. "She came and spoke to you and explained that you were needed, I believe your response was to stab yourself with a fork to see if you were dreaming then you tried to make her leave, something about her being insane or who was paying her to do this. So long story short we snapped you up and brought you to our universe and after much panicking oh god it was hilarious we finally calmed you down enough to explain. So here is the quick version, we are Shepard's that followed the path of your created fictional versions of us we completed the trilogy but this universe fails, it is based off a game you didn't complete one were you died and never reloaded needless to say with that universes Shepard dead the reapers win and you know what that means lots and lots of dead people, hell even the next cycles die and on and on so on and so forth."

As I sat there trying to absorb what she was telling me all I could do was draw a blank, this stretched the realm of what I perceived to be possible and even if it was possible why me?

"So I guess I will tell you how we got inside your head. Once you agreed to help us and don't get it wrong you did agree honey. We utilised the technology the Geth used to place me in one of their servers all be it slightly modified you see our organic bodies died quite some time ago, and we were deemed too important by the Geth not to keep so they suggested we be made well more. We were digitised and stored and once we decided to intervene in other universes and you were chosen to help us we were implanted in the various tech implants in your new body." As she finished all I could do was look up at the white ceiling it was calming, I had just sat through an explanation that would make the greatest minds in history lose it.

Before I could think on it some more I noticed something, the white ceiling it began to flake slowly at first a few pieces here and there but before long it was spreading like a cancer infecting and tearing down the crisp clear white ceiling and now it was spreading to the walls.

"Well that's the story in the nutshell, now I did promise you could ask three questions but it seems you're waking up faster than I suspected….." She paused her devilish grin reappearing I looked over at Sovereign who had been silent the whole time not even seeming to move a muscle. "Or perhaps I timed it perfectly." She added as I found myself staring at another ceiling.

The light was bright it hurt or at least my head hurt the light wasn't doing me any favours. I brought my hands to my head and sat up.

"Seems your head feels as bad as mine." That voice I recognised it as Shepard or more accurately as the Shepard from Eden Prime.

"Inside voice please, oh god feels like a mule kicked me in the head." I rubbed my eyes with my hands before finally looking over at Shepard. "So I want to go ahead and say that the beacon did this? Jesus that hurts." My head was throbbing not having any memory prior to waking up in a crater I had nothing to compare it to.

"The doctor says we are both fine, but she wants to have a talk with you later something about your tech implants." She said bringing me over a glass of water.

"Thanks" I accepted the glass and quickly downed it. I realised I hadn't eaten or drunken anything since my awakening. "So where am I?" I asked knowing full well by this point I was in Normandy's med-bay, I wondered if that brandy Chakwas kept around was nearby after my day and whatever I had just gone through in that dream I had just had a drink surely wouldn't do me any harm.

)Wasn't a dream, I expected better from you. You were so good before the crash to such a disappointment(.

The voice in my head was drowning out whatever Shepard was saying to me, oh god it wasn't a dream that or I really am insane.

(You're not insane we can talk later stay focused on what is in front of you).

"Charles?" Shepard asked looking slightly worried.

"Sorry Shepard my head is killing me, I just had a horrible dream." I trailed off if she asked about it I can't tell her about the meeting with the other versions of her, if she asks I will have to be careful I can't reveal the whole meaning of the beacon a light touch would be needed.

)Maybe you are not a lost cause at this point at least your analytical mind seems to still be intact(.

I ignored Alexandra's words of 'encouragement' focusing on the Shepard in front of me.

"What was your dream about?" She asked slowly rubbing her hands together.

"I saw destruction, there was death everywhere, synthetics I think." I paused rubbing my temple "Sorry it isn't really clear." I let out a smile before placing the now empty cup of water on a tray.

"Yea I had a dream like that. Those Prothean's sure knew how to mess with your head." As she finished the door opened and Doctor Chakwas and Captain Anderson entered.

"Seems your other patient is awake doctor." Anderson said as he made his way over to me while Chakwas grabbed a data-pad off her desk.

"So it would seem, tell me how do you feel?" She asked as she made her way over.

"Besides the headache I have I feel fine had one hell of a nightmare I was just telling the Commander about it. Seems we had the same dream." I replied and only now did I realise that I was still wearing my armour.

"I will have to add that to both your reports, seems the experience left a common marker on you both." Chakwas flicked through her data before turning to me a second time.

"Now Carolus." I cut her off.

"Please just call me Charles doctor."

"Very well Charles, I have to ask you about your implants they are both extensive in terms of power output and number." She paused obviously trying to find a way to word whatever she was about to ask. "Some of these implants they are completely unknown to the alliance, I have sent scan readings of them to the Citadel and no one can tell me anything about them. These implants are while not illegal due to well us not having any idea what they are or even what half of them do it made treatment of you impossible. Where did you get them?" Her question finally came, obviously unknown tech would raise eyebrows, but even more worrying was the fact I didn't have an answer.

( **You got to make a good backstory. Mercenary is a solid answer low level be vague don't leave them a trail to latch on to**.)

Thanks for the save Sovereign, I thought as I hurriedly threw together a backstory.

"My name Carolus Rex or Charles King either is fine; I was a mercenary I was making my way to Citadel space to start a new life. I was going to return to Earth and re-evaluate my life I have done nothing but be a paid gun for some of the worse people I could ever have imagined sure sometimes I worked for the good guys but more often than not it was my ass on the line for some drug runner or gang. And when you are in this business you take whatever advantage you can get the majority of my implants from less than reputable sources that is all I have to say about those I am afraid." I paused looking around at the three faces in the room trying to gauge the response.

Shepard was just leaning forward listening carefully, Chakwas was filling out another data-pad probably adding it to a psych profile or something. Anderson on the other hand was unmoved his face steel not giving away anything oh well I was committed now. "I am sick of it, if I am risking my life I want to do it for the right reasons fight the good fight if you will." I let out a sigh. "Now it seems I have got caught up in something pretty big I don't know what I will do now."

"Well from the mission report of the ground team you were a valuable asset, while there are some question that will need answers, this will suffice for now. There will be a debriefing when we arrive at the citadel in a few hours. Doctor will that do for now?" Anderson asked turning to Chakwas.

"Well its not really useful but for now it will have to do he is under no obligation to tell me anything he doesn't want to but I do advise against it." With a nod of the head Chakwas and Anderson left again leaving me alone again with Shepard.

"Don't suppose you would like a tour?" Shepard asked as she jumped off her bed.

"You know what Shepard a tour would be nice." I let out a large sigh and stretched my arms and legs and made a personal note, I have got to figure out how to get this armour off.

* * *

 **What is this** **madness? Two updates within a week. I must be sick. Anyway first major story bomb dropped but the really question is can anyone trust the voices in their heads? Can you spot any possible plot problems with Alexandra's story? Again I have made a twitter handle were I post story updates you can find its link on the fanfiction profile.**

 **Next chapter the citadel and consequences of previous mistakes. DRAMATIC MUSIC**

 **Castor Out.**


	5. Well In That Light It Makes Me Look Bad

Disclaimer I hate this chapter I just feel like I didn't do a good job portraying what I was trying to. This is as good as I think I am going to get it so here we go.

* * *

Shepard's tour of the Normandy wasn't exactly what you would call detailed, she showed me around the main thoroughfares the CIC, mess hall, cargo hold and on-board training facility. While I had most of the layout stored quite nicely in my memory from playing the game the training facility was new I had always figured a warship would have an area I guess the game didn't feel the need to have it.

Shepard had quickly been called away after she was finished with me though she did say she wanted to ask me some more questions but they could wait. Once she was gone I just wanted to get somewhere quiet and alone, while I had been with her the crew had payed me very little attention but once I was alone it seemed that they were avoiding me this wasn't really much of a surprise but the looks of what I could only describe as distain was a bit much. I could understand looks of distrust and suspicious but what I was seeing was much worse.

And so not wanting to cause an incident or give someone an excuse to start one I had quickly and while being as polite as possible to those that past my way, made my way over to the training and exercise area. I figured that Anderson was properly going over the debrief from Eden Prime with the official Alliance ground team and maybe addressing the death of Jenkins. I would properly be asked to give my version of events after that but for now all I wanted to do was think about the past day's events, while I wasn't under fire or at risk of being shot by flashlight robots.

I jumped on one of the treadmills positioned against the wall and started a steady run and began to gather my thoughts.

"What is eating you dear?" Alexandra's voice was as best as I could tell sympathetic but knowing the kind of person she was, since I was technically her creator I doubted that assessment. I closed my eyes and focused on the voice inside my head.

"I don't know maybe the fact that I have no memory from before waking up in a crater that isn't to do with the games that this universe is based around." I let my voice reflect the feelings of anger that were now festering in my core over her actions when I was out cold. "I think I'm entitled to feel a bit anxious about my current predicament." Silence as she didn't answer me, this was a welcome response given my earlier interactions with her had been less than pain free.

"Yeah well here I was thinking you would love the chance to be in this world I mean you did complete fifty-two separate run throughs of the series." Her voice was back and had returned to the patronising tone she had used to address me in my 'dream'.

"Playing a game is a lot different than fighting for your life with other people living in your head and having one of them treat you like a child."

"But you are a child dear." Her reply was as quick as it was annoying. "In terms of your reason for being here that is. Honestly this isn't how it was planned, we spend two years training your body and mind for this and almost as soon as we start you go ahead and get blown out of the sky and forget everything we so painstakingly taught you." She sighed as she finished her little vent at my perceived incompetence.

"Well seeming as you are also part of me isn't that partly your fault?" I quipped in return as I kept plodding along on the treadmill at a steady rate I looked at the display and saw I had already gone a few kilometres but still felt fresh.

"You know you could show A little bit of gratitude as you only survived because of myself and my other self's. We had to seriously hold you back on your little suicide run against Saren." Her words caused me to think back to that moment of zombie like movement. I tried to recall my thought processes at the time but the memory was weak it hurt to recall it.

"I don't understand I couldn't even hear you guys at that point."

"Yes you could, what you think a computer was giving you all that information? Well technically we are computers now but that's not the point it was us. We were trying to seize control of your body to stop you from being an idiot but the connections were still damaged."

"What the fuck do you mean seize control?" I snapped at her at the thought of my body being torn away from me or moved like a puppet on a string. As I finished I found myself speeding up but it wasn't me that was doing it once again I found myself in the feeling of being a spectator to my own actions.

"Like this." She replied as she began running faster and faster before slowing back down to my steady pace. "I told you already we run through your various implants and they can allow us to control you, provided we have a two third majority between the other me's." I didn't know how to react to this revelation, I could lose control of my own body with no say? What was the point of my being here? Why did they need me at all if they could just technically move a human body like a robot?

"Now I suggest you think about running because you are about to have control again." As she finished I felt myself being 'put' back in my body and after a few fumbled steps soon took up the rhythm again.

"Just what am I to you?" I felt like breaking down I sped up on the treadmill venting to this latest piece of news. "Why the hell do you even need me if you can do that?" There was no answer only the sound of my feet crashing against the treadmill. "Why did you ruin my life!" Again no answer came as I jumped off the treadmill, all I wanted to do was hit something, anything I wanted to feel the impact of my fist slamming into a solid object and not seeing anything suitable settled for slamming my fist into the wall. A blue aura had formed around my fist as I continued to bring it to bear against the dent that was slowly forming on the wall.

"Fuck!" I finally brought myself away from the wall and slumped against it letting myself fall to the floor. I looked down at my hands, my body still covered in my armour I had yet to take the time to see how it came off, if it came off at all seeing as how it had just appeared from nowhere on Eden Prime. I truly felt lost, why did this happen to me? I don't even remember anything besides the games, what could I have possibly done to deserve this.

"Perhaps it would be better if I ended it now." I let out with a sigh knowing how futile the attempt would be if the Shepard's in my head could take over at any given point.

"You should find out what happened to your pistol." Sovereign's voice came from my head I could tell this was something I was never going to get used to as his voice snapped me out of my spiral. "You are going to need. You can't change what has happened make the best of the situation you find yourself in." And with those words of I wanted to say encouragement he resided back into my mind.

" **Charles King to the bridge, Charles King to the bridge."**

The voice was one I heard a million times before it was the voice of Joker, or rather Seth Green's voice. Judging from the formality of the request it would seem he would be in earshot of someone that would reprimand him if he used his usual humour that he would be become memorable for. Deciding not to keep them waiting I picked myself up off the floor and headed for the elevator.

As I made my way on the bridge cursing the horribly slow elevator time as it stopped at every floor picking up other crew members, I saw Kaidan, Ashley, Shepard and Anderson all standing around the cockpit talking. As Anderson saw me he nodded to the others he in response turned towards me.

"Mr King." Anderson said as he approached. "You will be coming with us to see the Human Ambassador Donnel Udina." He paused quickly looking over me. "While you were out we cleaned your armour seeing as how we couldn't figure how it came off. We couldn't have you presented covered in bits of Geth." He added with a quick smile.

"We are just approaching the citadel now sir." Joker added the rest of the party turned to look out the cockpit window I to found myself drawn to the lights of the Citadel. It was massive I stood their mouth wide open as I took it the sheer size of it as we approached. I could make out the sound of Kaidan and Ashely talking but I was to engrossed in what I was seeing, it was impressive enough in game but seeing it in person was truly awe inspiring.

"It's amazing" I said to no one in particular as we moved gracefully between other vessels looking to dock or just orbiting the station. And then like a tonne of bricks being dropped on me I remembered what it was. The catalyst, or the key to the reapers victory, the number of people that would die here the bodies that would be gathered it all came to me and the majesty of the scene in front of me was lost. My face hardening as I stepped back from the cockpit with my legs starting to shake. The others were still looking onwards as Joker pulled us into dock and without another word I slipped into a nearby seat.

Anderson seemed to notice my change in mood but only acknowledged me with a nod of the head which I failed to return as the horrors of a war I knew was coming flooded into my mind. The games had always made the reapers seem horrific and almost god like in their power, but I loved them as an enemy they were interesting and seemingly unstoppable every victory against them seemed impossible the odds always stacked against you, but it was just a game and I quickly came to realize that this was no longer the case. That thought terrified me beyond words.

"They can be beaten we did it and so now can you and the Shepard over there. Never forget that." Sovereign's voice did little to reassure me as we pulled into dock.

The trip from the Normandy's dock to Udina's office was a blur I could hardly remember placing one foot in front of the other or the elevator ride down from the dock. Shepard tried to talk to me some of the way but my answers were quick and aimed at trying to end any conversation that would arise. It wasn't until Udina spoke that I finally forced myself back into reality.

"So I take it this is the mercenary you picked up on Eden Prime?" Udina asked Anderson as he looked over at me, his blunt tone and hardened stare was brutal the games just made Udina out to be a dick but in person he was much more intimating.

"Yes this is Carolus Rex or Charles King." Anderson spoke matter of factually as he addressed Udina clearly wanting this over as quickly as possible.

"The council would like to speak with him and the ground team from Eden Prime, I have convinced them to give us an audience about Carolus's claims against Saren. Needless to say they were not happy allegations against one of their best agents like this was not welcome news." Udina replied rubbing the sides of his temples as he spoke. "You will all follow me to the council's chambers." He added as he began heading out the door to his office. As our procession made its way towards the waiting transit cabs I noticed Shepard looking at me once she noticed I saw her she quickly took her gaze away, there was something in those red eyes of hers. Regret? Doubt? I wasn't sure but it gave me an uneasy feeling.

"Look your pistol." Sovereign said as his presence built in my head. "She has your pistol. Why would she have it?" I looked over and sure enough my pistol was hanging from hip. "Carolus listen to me, whatever happens at this meeting remember what needs to happen the evidence against Saren is paramount. Do not try and speed things along here. Stick to the timeline for now." This time once he finished talking he didn't recede into my mind clearly he was expecting something but what?

We arrived to the council chambers and it was there that I got my first glance of a man I hoped Shepard would soon be spending quite a bit of time with over the coming years. Garrus Vakarian. His blue colony markings clearly visible against the grey colouring of his face. He looked fresh still young and full of energy just wanting to protect the innocent, not the world weary cynic that he would come to be.

"Saren is hiding something I need more time, stall them." Garrus spoke with a sense of urgency.

"Stall the council? You're investigation is over Garrus." The other Turian replied before turning and walking past us. Garrus looked over to us he paused for a brief moment taking a slightly longer evaluation of me before turning to Shepard.

"Commander Shepard, Garrus Vakarian. I was the C-Sec officer in charge of the investigation of Saren."

"Did you turn up anything?" Shepard replied quickly glancing over towards me.

"Saren's a spectre most of his activities are classified. I couldn't find anything solid." Shepard lowered her head at the response. Why is this eating at her so much? "But I know he is hiding something, like you humans say I can feel it in my gut."

"Commander if you are quite finished we cannot keep the council waiting." Udina's voice came booming as he clearly let us know of his displeasure.

"Good luck Commander maybe they will listen to you and your team." Garrus answered as he made his way past us.

As we made our way up the stairs towards the council chamber I struggled to admire the layout and beauty of the area, it was truly breathtaking but sightseeing would have to wait for another time the stairs shined to perfection the layout of this place served to truly make the council seem like royalty deciding the fate of billions every day. As we reached the walkway beneath the councillors the hologram communicator to the side came to life and their he stood, Saren.

I stood there staring at him knowing what he was and what he would do. His mind already lost to his new masters.

"This meeting is brought to order." The Asari councillor started the proceedings. "This meeting will be two fold it will discuss the Geth activity on the Human World of Eden Prime and to discuss the results of the C-Sec Investigation into Saren Arteries and the events surrounding the of death of Nihlus."

The next few minutes were tense as Udina presented the case against Saren and the Geth activity has fiercely as possible while Saren just stood and listened. I listened as my accounts of that day were laid bare along with Shepard's team accounts. Shepard's was very straight to the point carefully listing the events as she saw them leaving nothing for interpretation. Ashley's was much the same flared with a considerable amount of anger about the deaths of her squad and the citizens of Eden Prime. Kaidan's report was filled with his thoughts on events as they unfolded as well as factual recounts of the day he was clear in his distrusting nature of my arrival and actions but drew the line short of accusing me of anything openly besides wild and reckless behaviour.

The councillors stopped to consider all they had heard, before shaking their heads. "

While the Geth attack is a matter of some concern, there is nothing to indicate that Saren was involved in anyway." The Asari councillor's tone was clearly playing around the emotions of those in attendance trying to calm the Human party while not suggesting they were lying about the events of the day and Saren. The Turian councillor was less than diplomatic.

"The Citadel Security investigation into Saren found nothing to support your charge of treason."

"A witness saw him kill Nihlus in cold blood." The venom was clear in Udina's voice as he snapped in response.

"We have listened to the accounts and read the reports of that mission, the testimony of one man who was found unconscious at the scene and who's identify are completely unknown to any official records in our possession is not compelling evidence."

"I not only resent these charges but offer evidence to suggest the guilty party is indeed present at these proceedings." Saren's voice felt like blades being pushed into my skull as I realised what he was getting at.

"Your gun. He used it to kill Nihlus." Sovereign sounded for the first time since I had heard him speak a bit flustered. With a few motions Saren's display changed to show me before quickly changing to documentation about me.

"That human is a known criminal that I have been hunting for the best part of a year. His name is Carolus Rex apparently it is derived from Latin a long dead Human language his real name is unknown."

"We can't stay here we need to go now!" Sovereign's voice was urgent. "We need to get your pistol and go, trust the Shepard will follow Garrus's leads and get the evidence from Tali but we cannot stay here!" I stood there frozen listening to Saren list my known crimes.

"The tests conducted on Nihlus's body confirm that it was his pistol that fired the rounds that killed my good friend and comrade Nihlus. He is wanted for the deaths of several Spectre's and therefore I am invoking my Spectre authority to have him placed under arrest and sentence him to death." I turned my head and watched as Udina stepped back from me and the others tensed themselves.

"The evidence is overwhelming. Captain your team is take this man into custody to await his punishment." The Turian Councillor said as he pointed at me. Anderson nodded to Shepard and Kaidan and Ashely drew weapons.

"That's it, I am taking control." I felt myself get replaced in my mind as Sovereign took control. In the blink of an eye he had created a barrier and charged at Shepard, Ashley tried to stop him but Sovereign threw her down the first set of stairs with a powerful biotic push, before turning to Kaidan and ducking his biotic punch before delivering one of his own to Kaidan's midsection. Shepard opened her Omni-tool and drew my pistol but she hesitated and in that moment of indecision Sovereign grabbed the front of my pistol and wrestled it from her grip.

In a matter of seconds Sovereign had managed to get the jump on three highly trained soldiers. It was a sight to behold.

"Sovereign, what is the escape plan?" Alexandra asked as she joined me in my mind.

"We need to lay low while making sure Shepard goes looking for the right evidence. We need to get to the lower wards and vanish in the crowd." Sovereign replied as he activated the tactical cloak.

"Carolus dear you really are useless aren't you." As much as I hated her I couldn't argue just what was I doing?

As we made our way towards the nearest exit the sound of alarms ringing and security officers arriving on scene was everywhere.

"How long will our cloaking last?" I asked them as we made our way down corridors slowly working our way down towards the lower levels where we could perhaps hide.

"The cloaking will last around fifteen minutes provided we don't fire a weapon." Alexandra answered as I slowly brought my mind out of the daze from what had just occurred.

"I can't keep this up Carolus is going to have to take over." Sovereign added as he rounded another corner and entered an elevator.

"What do you mean I have to take over?" I asked confused as to why I was needed at all.

"If we are in control your mind will begin to fade out. You are not housed in the implants we are, if we took over for good you would cease to be or you would just become a vegetable which to be honest is about as good as you are now!" Alexandra replied as she began fading into my body once more.

"We need your mind; we know the events of a great number of possibilities of the Mass Effect universe but you know more than we could ever hope to imagine. You are the mind and we are to be your body. No I am going to hand back control follow my directions and we should make it to the lower levels where we can hide." And with that Sovereign relinquished control and I resumed our retreat down into the wards.

* * *

 **Hey guys Lord Castor here, hope the chapter was only bad in my eyes but time will tell. You have no idea how much I stressed over writing this.**

 **Follow my Twitter for chapter progress reports and not much else xD**

 **Cya guys**

 **Lord Castor Out!**


	6. Hunted While On The Trail!

**Shepard**

Anderson had been clear in his debrief but still the order to seize Charles had come as a shock to her, she wanted to believe he wasn't what they were claiming he was she had always gone on instinct that was what had kept her alive when the Batarian's had arrived on Mindoir and when her whole squad was wiped out on Akuze and her instinct was telling her he was innocent of Nihlus's death.

The councillors had been quickly evacuated once the fight started and the call with Saren also ended. As Ashely and Kaidan dusted themselves off the floor Udina approached her.

"Commander, this isn't good enough. We just failed to apprehend one unarmed man with the three trained operatives. I am beginning to think perhaps putting you forward as a Spectre candidate was a mistake." Udina was as tactless as she had been warned about, but even she still didn't feel like she the right candidate for humanities first Spectre.

"Don't worry ambassador the commander will help find Charles or whatever his name is." Anderson stepped in seemingly to defend his XO from Udina's wrath. "They are my time and I will take responsibility for their mistakes here." Udina glared at Anderson fiercely.

"Very well Captain, you will come with me to my office while I try and get some answers, the Commander will take the Lieutenant and Gunnery Chief and find the murderer." With that said Udina began to leave while Anderson quickly nodded towards her and followed suit. Finally coming free from her state of self-doubt, she looked at her team.

"Are you both okay?"

"Yes Commander I knew he was a biotic but I didn't expect him to attack, the snipers on duty here must have been caught off guard." Ashley replied as she rotated her shoulder it was clearly annoying her while her armour would have absorbed most of the impact getting thrown down those stairs she must have landed on the shoulder directly.

"How do you know there were snipers here?" Kaidan asked as he made his way over.

"Well it makes sense Lieutenant with the councillors here even the room layout makes it a greatly defensible position. I would have snipers stationed here whenever the councillors are present." Ashley paused before turning back to Shepard. "But this is best discussed another time we should really get going after Charles, what should we do Commander?"

"I believe that chasing after him isn't going to do us any good, he seemed completely taken back by the evidence against him, I don't believe he was expecting to being suspected." She stopped to think, they needed a local securities help but they didn't really have time for the red tape.

"What about that C-Sec agent? Garrus?" Kaidan spoke up clearly still feeling the effects of the blow he had taken to the mid-section as he stretched his back.

"He was in charge of the investigation into Saren he has to be capable and if Saren has had run ins with Charles or Carolus or whatever his name is perhaps he has something on him." Ashley added.

"Then that is our plan, but how do we find Garrus?" She was determined to catch Charles first there she had to confront him herself, she had to confirm his guilt or innocence even if she didn't fully understand why.

* * *

 **Charles**

I followed Sovereign's directions as I made my way further down into the bowels of the Citadel, as I made my way further down I noticed pictures of me were now being prominently displayed on the electronic billboards that lined many of the walls and advertising stations.

"Armed and dangerous." Sovereign muttered to himself as I felt him take residence in my mind.

"Are you feeling alright? I mean does taking over tire you?" I asked as I made my way past another group of C-sec agents, this cloak really was amazing.

"No." His reply was blunt which is what I had come to suspect from Sovereign. "Make a left here the cloak is about to wear off." I quickly ducked into the ally to my left and sure enough the cloak failed as I made it out of the main thoroughfare and into the shadows.

"Well now what, it's not like I have a spare change of clothes, and more important still I don't even know how this stuff comes off?" I said pointing at the armour that was highly visible with its colour strips. The two streaks of blue down my left side, the two streaks of red down my right and the light green down my mid-section.

"They represent the choice that will have to be made." Alexandra's presence quickly became known as I felt her enter my mind. "Control, Destroy or Synthesis." It made sense a constant reminder of what this universes possible futures could be and a reminder of what would be sacrificed for future.

"Well that's all well and good but that doesn't solve our current problem." I retorted deciding the purpose of my armour wasn't important right now we clearly had larger more urgent issues to discuss.

"Well that would be true if we couldn't just change it." Her voice was as annoying as ever as my armour faded out and in its stead a casual set of clothes appeared. I was now wearing a plain pair of dark blue trousers and wearing a black jacket with a hood over a white shirt.

"At this point I don't even want to know how this is possible right now. I mean am I even wearing anything?" My voice clearly reflected the puzzled thoughts running through my mind.

"No." Sovereign once again keeping to his quick responses.

"The third one of us is currently still repairing the damage caused from Eden Prime and the events prior but at least she has the armour projectors working. And thank god for that, I don't know if I could stand looking at you naked for very long." Alexandra added barely holding her laughter in as she spoke.

"Wait you have seen me naked? When did that happen?" I shouldn't have been surprised considering they exist within my body but the thought of other people seeing me nude without my knowledge was still embarrassing.

"Oh don't be so shy, we got you in excellent shape not quite a meat head like that James Vega but the scars from your implants kind of ruin the view." And with that said she retreated back into whatever hole she crawled out of her laughter fading as she went leaving me feeling slightly violated, and adding another reason to the growing list of reasons I dislike her.

"So when do I get to meet this other Shepard?" I asked Sovereign as he was now the only one loitering in my head.

"When the repairs are done I imagine, but they were always difficult to work with. They seem caring but deep down they are goal driven. A wolf in sheep's clothing." I reflected a moment on what he said, trying to place which of my play throughs of Mass Effect he could be referring to judging from what was said mostly paragon but more than willing to take the renegade actions or use people to get results. "We need to make sure Shepard is on the right track, she could still be hunting us along with C-Sec, good thing we have her Omni-Tool information. Let's send her a message."

"Why would she listen to us? As far as she knows I am a mass murdering criminal that lied to her face." I countered as I brought up my Omni-tool. "I mean did you see the way she was looking at me today? She knew something was going to happen, she was distant like she was scared of me." I trailed off as I ran through the day's events scanning everything I could in perfect detail people's faces and expressions even though I wasn't paying much attention at the time I seemed to be able to have a perfect recollection of my and everyone else's movements and actions. Kaidan's hostility during the mission on Eden Prime, Ashley reaction to meeting me after her squad had been killed, and Shepard's deep red eyes staring at me as I came around after Saren beat me. I shuddered at the thought of those eyes and what they had witnessed and how they would change after the weight of the galaxy is dropped on her shoulders.

The sound of heavy footsteps brought my attention back to my immediate situation deciding to keep moving I continued deeper into the lower levels of the wards making sure my face was covered by my hood as much as possible.

"Shepard hesitated to stop me. If she didn't believe in us to some extent we would be in custody already." Sovereign finally spoke up. "Do you even know which Shepard she is yet?"

"Tiger Shepard." I replied before evening thinking.

"Good seems your mind is still working, but I suppose that was an easy one you did create us all in a way." Sovereign replied seemingly pleased that I was able to make the connection. It was down to a fifty/fifty guess, I had tended to colour my Shepard's eyes differently as much as possible and Tiger was one of two FemSheps that had the silver hair red eye combination and it was also the latest combination I had created and as such hadn't finished the play through with her the other possibility being Felicia Shepard who was a bit more of a loose cannon that I got from this universes Shepard.

"Well we need to make sure she stays on track Saren must be exposed." Sovereign was right of course, but I had a feeling getting Shepard to do what we need was going to be an uphill challenge. As I passed a number of vendors taking in the various smells of food for across the galaxy it was a familiar smell of fish that gave me an idea.

"What if I used myself as bait?" I asked Sovereign.

"Explain?" Sovereign reply was once again short and to the point, I have got to work on opening him up I thought before elaborating further.

"What if we…"

* * *

 **Shepard**

She had been leading Kaidan and Ashley around C-sec academy for what seemed like an eternity. The plan had been a simple one go to C-sec ask for Officer Vakarian and see what he knew. Simple really, alas she had not accounted for the brick wall of red tape that was C-sec. She kept being bounced around from office to office by various officers of various ranks all promising that the next stop would be the last but by now it was evident this plan wasn't going to cut it.

"How hard can it be to find one stone bird? How does anybody get anything done around here?" Ashley's impatience was beginning to show, but She herself was beginning to wonder how C-sec got around to doing anything.

"This isn't going to work." She finally conceded gesturing for Kaidan to come re-join herself and Ashley over by the elevator as he finished talking to another C-sec agent.

"Sorry commander." Kaidan was hiding his frustration a little better than herself and Ashley but the tone in his voice was enough to give away he was also feeling the sting of bureaucracy. Before she could reply her Omni-tool began flashing, a message without thinking she opened it.

" _Hello, Shepard I am going to assume you have the LT and Gunny with you._ _Today has not gone as I had hoped and I don't really see a way for me to get off this station with all of C-Sec gunning for me."_

"Mother Fucker." She muttered as Kaidan and Ashley looked on confused.

"Commander?" She looked up at her two squad members before finally replying to Ashley's confused look.

"It's Carolus."

"What? Kaidan replied looking even more confused now that he knew the reason for Shepard's profanity. She quickly forwarded the message to them both before continuing to read on.

" _So I have come to the conclusion that I am a dead man. That being said I have no intention of committing death by cop, and if these are to be my last days alive I am going to get the most out of it, here is what I have in mind I am going to give you a set of tasks for each one you accomplish I will answer one question truthfully no tricks one question one answer. Once you have completed all of my requests you can claim your prize…...ME! and if Saren is to believed what a prize I would be I am a spectre hunting gun wielding mad man or so he says but I think your gut says otherwise so without further a due. Task number one! In the lower wards there is a medical clinic I will relay the exact location once you reply with your acceptance of my little game, talk to the doctor who runs it and once that is done send me a message and I will confirm if you have done as I asked!_

 _Signed_

 _Dead man walking_

 _Carolus Rex AKA Charles King."_

"Just what is he playing at?" She muttered to herself as she looked over at Kaidan and Ashley as they to finished reading Charles's message.

"That son of a bitch is playing with us." Ashley had gone from barely controlled rage against C-sec to outright fury. "He expects us to dance to his little tune and for what! So we can maybe get some answers? Who says he won't lie about whatever question we ask? Or that he will even let us capture him at the end!?" Kaidan was taking it a little better, a distinct look of disgust was apparent on his face but he wasn't ranting and raving like Ashley was doing.

"Get a hold of yourself Williams, if we can't find Garrus and C-sec won't help we might as well see what these request reveal. The longer we can keep him engaged with us the less time he is spending hiding or planning an escape, we have to keep him fixated on us." Without further discussion she opened her Omni-tool and send her reply.

" _Alright I accept."_

Before she could look away the reply came through giving the co-ordinates of a med clinic as he had said in the lower wards.

"Commander, we should be careful if what Saren said was true." Kaidan stopped as he saw her check her pistol and head towards the rapid transit terminal. She was going to get answers and if performing this little song and dance was going to get them she was more than willing, but she wasn't going to take any chances.

* * *

 **Charles**

"Okay I have to ask why not just plead innocence like a child and point her in the right direction why the mind games?" Alexandra had returned clearly interested in where I was going with this, I figured they knew what I was doing even if I couldn't "feel" them present.

"If I am stuck here in this universe, I have to think of the long game I need a backstory that isn't rubbish and I need a reason as to why I know things before she and the Normandy crew do. So let's say I happen to have stumbled upon another beacon before Eden Prime, let's say I knew what Saren was up to and that I was trying to stop him, the finer points I can work out later I can't just come out with random bits of knowledge out of nowhere, so I invent a network of contacts say they have acquired the information about the good doctor and Tali already." As I laid out my thought process I could feel the two Shepard's in my head mulling it over.

"I mean, that's not a horrible explanation, but it works besides the one we had lined up doesn't really fit anymore considering what happened before Eden Prime…" Alexandra trailed off clearly not wanting to elaborate on what had happened and why the plan they had would no longer work.

"We can work out the details later, but it still doesn't say why you had to make a game out of this?" Sovereign spoke up as he re-joined the conversation.

"Carrot and a stick." I replied as I ducked around a corner to hide from a group of C-sec agents patrolling the wards. "They would just keep looking for me aimlessly or perhaps C-sec would catch me first. This way I give Shepard motivation and by motivation I mean I have probably pissed her off royally and she will come seeking answers and or my head, while also giving her directions to set her on the correct path." For a moment no one spoke I just kept walking through the wards not really heading anywhere just blending with the crowds as best I could while waiting for Shepard to finish up her first task.

"You know Carolus; it is such a shame you have forgotten everything we taught you. I thought we would have to try and do this without you, but it seems that there is some hope for you yet. I can't wait to see how spectacularly you will fuck this up." I allowed myself to feel a small sense of self-satisfaction as I figured this was as close as I was going to get to actual praise from Alexandra and I found a bench just beyond the main bodies of social traffic and took a seat making sure to keep my face as well hidden as possible.

The citadel was an amazing place, despite not being from this universe the sight of the various species of aliens didn't concern me the interrelationships of the council races was a sight to behold, people of all kinds living together in peace or at least as peaceful as sentient beings can be towards each other. There were the usual negative behaviours that characterised human nature but to me It felt like a triumph of life. I found myself for the first time since I had woken up on Eden Prime able to sit back and watch the world go on, I was sure it would only be a brief respite but it was one I was more than willing to enjoy.

My rest was brought to an abrupt end as Shepard send me a message saying she had completed my first request.

"Well let's see if she actually did it." I muttered to myself as I send her a message asking what had happened at the clinic and after a short wait the news I had hoped and expected to here had come through that she had saved the good doctor and met up with Garrus.

" _Good job Shepard, I am glad you made it in time I would have gone and helped but I am... well you know why I couldn't. Ask your question and once I have answered I will send you on my next task."_

I waited for her question patiently watching as people passed me by completely unaware of who was sitting on the bench just out of the way.

" _Where are you?"_ That was not the message I was expecting, surely she didn't expect me to answer that it would have defeated the whole purpose of my plan.

" _Now Shepard that's not how this works try again."_

" _You didn't specific I couldn't ask that but you can't blame me for not wanting to end this as quickly as possible. Are you guilty of what Saren says you are how does he know you?"_ That was the question I was expecting.

" _That's the half a million credit question right there now isn't it wonder if your next one will be the million credit question. ANSWER: Maybe – I said I would answer truthfully and I am a man of my word or at least I think I am. I have gaps in my memory I found a beacon before like the one on Eden Prime I ran into Saren there the two of us fought I got a vision from that one too. When I came to Saren and the beacon were gone. Now that was really two questions but as a show of faith I answered both! Aren't I nice! Next task, you should have found out about a man called fist go follow that lead! Message me when your done I got to run."_

With the message send and instructions given I allowed myself to return to my state of observation hoping to achieve another moment of wonder before resuming my hectic life once again however it was not to be as I looked up I noticed an Asari pointing me out to two heavily armed C-sec agents.

"Shit." I quickly arose from my seat and moved into the crowd with the two officers now tailing behind. I moved into the thickest section of the crowd hoping that the officers wouldn't dare attempt to confront me in such a densely populated area to many civilians.

"If they try and stop us take a hostage, they won't move on us if a civilian is in the way. C-sec has to many rules." I felt my stomach tightening is that the sort of man this path will turn me into? A low life willing to use innocents as a shield? I pushed the thoughts from my mind and pushed further into the crowd.

"If I find a new place to hide can you change my outfit again? They have surely seen my current gear." I asked as I carefully looked over my shoulder to see if they were still on my tail and much to my dismay they were joined by a few more to the sides of the crowd.

"That wouldn't be a problem." Sovereign replied as I made a move towards a back street. As I made my way into the less well-lit back streets I could hear the quickening of the footsteps behind me I could make out six different sets at least, that was not a good sign. I took as many turns as I could trying to lose some of my pursuers. After coming to a four-way intersection I activated my cloak and stood against the wall waiting as the officers approached the intersection.

"Damn it which way did he go?" One of the Turian's said as he looked at each pathway. The various paths were relatively deserted with only a few people smoking or walking down any given path. I was also able to finally get a good look at my hunters, there was four Turian's and human and a Salarian. One of the Turian's looked directly at me I felt my heart race as I prepared for what could possible end up being a close quarters fight, my mind racing a million miles an hour. Could I bring myself to kill them? How could I fight them without killing them? As I slowly reached for my pistol tucked away inside my jacket, as I readied myself to take a life my hand was shaking and I could feel Sovereign preparing to take over.

"Remember how many lives are at stake if we fail, you killed the Geth on Eden Prime, you can kill these guys to, it's no different." His words did not comfort me the Geth were different, they were synthetic not truly AI not yet anyway. Killing another breathing living being was another matter entirely. Finally, the Turian turned away and I let out a controlled sigh as they began moving away.

"Who knows let's split up, Teams of two for each passage way keep in radio contact." One of the other Turian's said as he gestured which people should take what passage way before turning to the Salarian. "You stay here in case he tries to back track if you even think you see him contact the rest of us." The Salarian nodded in reply as the others went their assigned routes. I waited for the other agents to move further down their paths before moving from the wall and heading back the way I had come.

As I made my way past the remaining C-sec agent however I knocked a lose piece of pipe on the floor not seeing it as it was hidden beneath some rubbish. The sound of the metal slamming into the wall and rolling down the corridor caused the Salarian to turn pistol drawn directly at me.

"Don't move!" He demanded. "I know you're there, deactivate the tactical cloak and place your weapons on the ground!" Again he demanded. I just stood there frozen how could I have made such a stupid mistake, I saw him raise his Omni-tool to his mouth clearly going to call for help, I couldn't allow him to do that, too much was at stake and without thinking I deactivated and cloak pistol drawn and pulled the trigger.

* * *

 **Hello all Lord Castor back again, I loved writing this Chapter It was so much fun to write and needless to say I am much happier with how this one turned out!**

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 **Also Cliffhanger!**


	7. I Can't Save You Now

**This chapter covers quite a time frame, I think it came out pretty well a few sections I am kinda eh about. Please leave a review of the story so far, I would really appreciate feedback so I can try and make this story a better experience for you all it can be grammar, story points I don't mind.**

* * *

Everything was silent, my pistol drawn and pointing at the spot the Salarian had just been standing now he lay on the ground blood pooling around him, still alive his breathing was intermittent blood building in his throat as his lungs filled with blood. I had fired three shots in quick succession the first one was absorbed by his shields while the second two shots had torn into his chest leaving a sizeable hole in not just his armour but also his body.

As he lay dying in front of me I couldn't look away no matter how much I wanted to his limbs were beginning to shake violently and the colour was rapidly leaving his skin he was dying slowly, painfully and alone in this dark backstreet. My hand began shaking I grabbed down on it with my other hand bringing my pistol arm to rest down by my side, but the shaking wouldn't stop. The Salarian had stopped moving now, the raspy breathing had stopped and sound finally returned to me.

"Xha? Xha come in? Respond damn it?" The Salarian's Omni-tool was on his fellow officers desperately trying to contact him but he would never answer. The sound of running was coming from all directions the few people who had been in the side streets had taken off at the sound of gun fire. I was now alone with nothing but a corpse for company.

"The other officers will be here soon we have to go." Sovereign's voice finally broke through. "We can't stay here, he died so that untold trillions could live we have to leave!" His voice was forceful this time. Without thinking I turned away from the man I had just murdered and began to run. The sound of pursuing agents quieter as I ran back to the main streets as I approached the path that would take me back to the crowds I saw crowds were gathering at the entrance while a group of C-sec agents kept the crowd away. I turned to head back towards the backstreets but the ever increasing noise of my pursuers forced he to realise that was futile, they had been surrounded my cloak was nowhere near ready to be used again and there were no side streets to flee through. I was trapped.

"Carolus listen to me." Another women's voice a voice I had not heard before came from my mind. It was soothing yet forceful enough to demand my attention. "His death was inevitable; everyone we kill dies so that we can with Shepard save countless lives. I remember what it was like to take a life for the first time it is a defining moment of a person's life." The sound of the approaching agents who were by now clearly going to be after my blood were close enough for me to make out conversations as they barked orders at each other while others swore to take my life make me suffer for killing a fellow officer. "But right now, the greatest dishonour you could do for that officer would be to fail now. Every person you have to kill do not see it that way, they are just another victim of the Reapers, they killed him not you they are just another person you couldn't save." Her words brought me to a realization, I may have pulled the trigger but this wasn't my fault. No I was not to blame not directly I wasn't good enough, wasn't strong enough to save him from them. The officers running towards me, I am not strong enough to save them yet, I needed to get stronger.

"He is over here!" I was interrupted as the first group of C-sec agents arrived weapons drawn aimed directly at me. I had put my pistol away as I had run away from my pursuers but here they were the ones containing the crowd had now let through another group to confront me while they kept the civilians back. I was now surrounded by C-sec agents who were heavily armed and looking for revenge, but for the sake of the Salarian who died alone in that ally I wasn't about to fall here.

"Drop your weapons and get on the ground!" Shouted one of the officers as his comrades slowly approached looking for any excuse to put me down.

"Or don't that would work to!" Another bellowed the rage in her voice clearly showing. If only they knew where they should be directing that rage. It should be at the Reapers not me, I was trying to save them.

"I am so sorry." My voice was quiet barely audible to any but the closest of them. "I am so sorry."

"What's he saying?" One of the agents further back asked.

"He says he is sorry." One of the closer ones replied. "Yea well sorry isn't going to cut it! You are going to pay for what you did!" Another yelled in anger. "I won't say it again get on the ground NOW!"

"It's okay Carolus, together we will make the Reapers pay for what they have done, what they are going to do but for now we have to live and for that to happen these people stopping us have to die." As the mystery Shepard finished talking I could feel a surge of power flow through my body, I remembered this feeling I couldn't recall when I felt it but It felt safe and calming.

"I am sorry…. I couldn't." I paused for a moment the build-up of power began leaking into the very air around me as my casual clothing faded and my armour returned.

"What the fuck?" One of the officers stuttered as a few of them back off slowly. "Sorry you couldn't what?" The closest one asked.

"Save you." I saw flickering strands of red lash around me as loose pieces of debris got snapped up into the air.

"Shit take him down! Open fire!" The thunder of guns soon ripped through the air but so was I. I threw myself forwards with my biotics straight into one of the officers in the back ranks sending him flying into a nearby wall with a thud, the rounds his comrades fired being absorbed by my barrier as I slammed my fist into a second one that I pinned against the wall red biotics flowing as my blow collapsed his helmet. As I withdrew my fist his body went limp as he slid down the wall bloody streaks marking where he had been pinned. My body felt light as I moved around the C-sec agents one after the other they tried to stop me but to no avail as most of their shots slammed into the walls and bulkheads. Now with pistol drawn I carved a path towards a side street felling another two of the officers as I made a hasty retreat as more agents arrived and my HUD blaring with notices about my barrier beginning to fail.

"Alexandra how is the barrier holding?" Sovereign asked as I took pot shots at the officers following me down the streets.

"Well enough, thankfully the distortion field is working a significant number of their shots missed us the shots that did hit home have taken a toll but I can hold it." She replied as the I felt the great surge of power slowly ebb away. My breathing was now laboured my legs were beginning to feel heavy more like stone pillars than flesh.

"Aletta can you get any more out of our amps?" Sovereign asked the other Shepard who had by now clearly taken residence in my mind.

"Not without risking the whole network, he will have to manage without the boost." She responded as the sense of calm that had once resonated through my body finally faded.

"What just happened?" I asked as the events of the past few moments finally began to process still not stopping despite gaining significant distance between myself and the officers giving chase.

"Carolus I will explain everything when we are not running for our lives, no scratch that not our lives the lives of the entire galaxy." Aletta responded as I struggled to will my now exhausted body onwards.

"But I just." My mind stopped as the pictures of my brutality flashed before me. "Oh god what have I done?" I managed to blurt out between my now laboured breathing. I didn't stop the sounds of gun fire had stopped and the footsteps of my pursers slowly faded into the distance.

"What you had to." Alexandra's voice was filled with sympathy not the usual patronising tone I had grown accustom to. I let her words and my actions sink in before coming to a stop and slumping against the cold metal wall.

"I can't go any further." I managed to say in-between deep breaths as I attempted to steady my heart rate and regulate my breathing.

"We know." Sovereign responded. "It's okay, that hatch on the wall opposite do you see it?" I brought my gaze away from the floor and saw a panel that was on a set of hinges and not welded like that rest.

"Yea I see it." I replied as I holstered my pistol and shifted my body to allow me to look across from my current position.

"It is an entrance to the Keeper tunnels they won't look for us in there but it isn't the safest of spaces, but we will be able to regroup there." With that said Sovereign and the other Shepard's faded from my mind. The sound of footsteps returned as my pursers now picked up my trail not wanting to get into another fight or rather not being able to I dragged my body over to the panel before lifting it open and throwing my mostly limp body down the tunnel and into the descending darkness.

* * *

 **Shepard**

This was not how she had expected her day to unfold. Wake up on the Normandy feeling like the morning after shore leave check, fail to arrest a man who was less than ten feet from her check, then follow instructions from said man and get caught in the middle of a shakedown of a med clinic check, and now here she was in the middle of a full on fire fight in the middle of a seedy bar on the citadel of all places, with a Turian C-sec agent and a Krogan bounty hunter for company.

"Fuck my life." She muttered to herself as she watched another one of the bar's defenders try to advance across open ground only for Garrus to remove the poor guy's head from his shoulders with his sniper rifle. The Krogan called Wrex was off to her right bulldozing his way through anyone that didn't have the brains to get out of his way.

While she herself was also working away on her fair share of bodies. One of them had gotten the smart idea to climb on top of the bar and use its height to fire down on her and her new found allies, sadly this left him largely in the open and unprotected. Shepard sabotaged his rifle with a quick tech attack, the poor guy clearly not being a trained fighter and more like hired muscle loudly cursed as he smacked his gun over and over trying to get it to work right up until the moment she fired two shots into his face with her pistol, and needless to say that was the end of that.

After flipping a few tables wild west style to use as cover sending cards and glass all over the floor in the process, she and her terrifying team cleared out the rest of the bars 'defenders'.

"All clear here Shepard." Garrus said as he looked over a few of the bodies to see if any of them were still alive.

"Well that was not fun." Wrex muttered as he lumbered over towards her. "When the Shadow Broker hired me for this job I thought he might have given me at least a good fight, but this would hardly be considered warm up." The old Krogan looked over at the bar before grabbing the seemingly only glass that had survived the shootout and fixed himself a quick drink before continuing. "Can't stand this Citadel crap." He added as he tossed the glass against the wall with a satisfying crash.

"Let's just get Fist and be done with this." She said as they made their way over to the rear door leading to Fist's office. As the door opened she was greeted by two more goons holding guns.

"Stop right there or we will shoot." One of them whimpered as he shakenly held up his pistol.

"Store workers." Garrus whispered as he and Wrex trained their weapons on the two clearly terrified workers. These must be the last of the staff she thought to herself as she decided that killing backroom workers was a little unnecessary.

"We just killed thirty of your friends back there." She said as she gestured behind her. "It's quite a mess and I don't really want to make another one in here." She added raising her pistol into the face of one of the two. 3….2….1. She thought to herself as the two men dropped their weapons and ran out the door.

"Would have been quicker to just kill them." Wrex shrugged as they made their way into Fist's office.

"Fist, I was wondering if we could have a nice long chat." Garrus said as he rounded the corner into the office.

"Get fucked you Turian piece of shit!" Fist replied as two personal defence turrets came online.

"Nope." She chuckled as she brought up a quick program on her Omni-tool that shut them down before they could even spin up.

"Pieces of junk!" Fist retorted as Wrex dragged him out from behind his desk and threw him at her feet.

"Now I need to ask you some questions about a Quarian." She said as she knelt down in front of him pistol in hand.

"Sure Quarian what do you wanna know?" It always amazed her how quickly so called tough guys talked whenever they felt just a little threatened, mind you what she and her new found friends had done in the other room was a bit more than a little threating.

After a few minutes of Fist fumbling around his words with her waving her pistol around she got what she wanted.

"I set her up to meet Saren's men, she thinks she is meeting the Shadow Broker directly, no one meets him directly not even I know who he or she is. When she gets there what you're looking for will be gone." He answered as he let out a laugh.

"Where is the meeting point." Garrus demanded as he rammed his pistol into Fist's nether region.

"A back alley in the wards I will give you the navigation point just don't kill me!" He pleaded as he quickly send over the nav point via Omni-tool.

"Alright let's move we don't have much time." She said as she nodded to Wrex and headed to the exit while Wrex did what he was paid to do.

It didn't take long to reach the meeting point and as soon as they did the bullets started flying. There was an explosion as one of the Salarian's that had gotten a little too close to the Quarian went flying into the wall. Garrus took a position atop the stairs while Wrex charged off towards the remaining targets shotgun in hand, while she had life a nightmare for them disabling armour joints, overloading shields and frying any tech she could hack her way into.

The battle didn't take long Saren had only send a handful of agents to deal with what he thought would be a simple child clearly not expecting A Krogan to come barrelling to the rescue guns blazing. With the last of them dispatched She gestured for the others to put their guns away as she approached the Quarian.

"Who are you?" The Quarian was clearly on edge even without being able to see her face, it was clear from her posture and tone of voice.

"Relax, my name is Commander Shepard, I am looking for evidence for who organised the attack on Eden Prime." She raised her hands to try and ease the tension, the last group of people the Quarian had met they tried to kill her. Shepard needed to know what she knew.

"Then I have a chance to repay my debt, but not here we need to go somewhere safe." She replied seemingly easing up it was hard to tell without facial expressions to read. She had never seen a Quarian before today, or a Krogan for that matter not in person anyway this day was just getting weirder and weirder.

"We can take her to the human embassy it should be save there." Garrus suggested.

"Good idea Udina will want to know what we have, and make the arrangement with the council." She agreed that it would be the best course of action but before they could get going, her Omni-tool received a message, it was from Kaidan.

" _C-sec found Carolus, you're not going to like this."_

* * *

 **Carolus**

When I finally opened my eyes I couldn't even see the hatch I had crawled into I had no idea how far I had fallen or how long I had been laying there motionless but I didn't really want to think about it either. It was welcoming the only sound being my own breathing the cold hard metal felt safe, I wished I could just lay here, let them find me let this nightmare end let the universe take its natural course what happens will happen, I just wanted this hell I had found myself in to end. Anyone who thought this universe could be a great adventure was narrow minded.

"Carolus your body should be ready to move now. Lets' get going." Aletta's voice was an unwelcome end to my silence.

"Why bother?" My voice was deflated; I had done nothing right since the moment I had awoken on Eden Prime who ever I was supposed to be was clearly not what I was. "I am clearly not what you all intended when you started this mission, what use is a broken solider?"

"The man you were supposed to be isn't relevant anymore, we work with what we have if you are even a half of the man we had before…. Look if we work together we can get through this." My response was just to close my eyes again I just felt so tired.

"Why should I care about what happens to this universe?" I muttered under my breath. My gloomy mood was cut short as a sudden burst of pain erupted through my chest.

"You want to know why you should care!?" Alexandra's voice was full with malice and rage. The burning pain began spreading throughout my body, I tried to scream but no sound would come out. "Countless people will feel a pain much worse than this, and those that survive till the end will live with the pain of knowing the trillions that died so that their insignificant lives could be extended just a little longer. While the Reapers destroy and corrupt all they come across!" The burning sensation was now filling what felt like every cell in my body, before vanishing in an instant.

"Now move, get up stop being a coward and do what only you can do." Sovereign added as I still lay in a feeble heap on the floor.

"Or we can do that again." Alexandra said without a hint of remorse for what she had just put me through. "You will do what we brought you here to do or I will personally put you through the worst levels of hell. You are one person, if we have to kill you we will but we are giving you a chance to do some good and help us save untold numbers of lives." As I lay there I thought what kind of person must I have been to willingly go along with this plan? Was I good man that wanted to help? Or an adventure seeker just doing it because it would be a journey one would dream about? No that didn't matter anymore I could decide who I wanted to be from now on, I would forge a new identity.

"I am sorry Alexandra, I…." I was interrupted by my Omni-tool going off as I shifted to allow myself to sit up I saw it was Shepard.

" _I have done your little song and dance, just be thankful what I found is useful. Udina has already heard the evidence and we will be presenting it to the council. I don't know if it will help after what you have done. I get to ask a question now, but I want to do it face to face. Turn yourself in, we will do what we can for you but this has to stop."_

I sat there a moment so she did it I thought to myself. She is now firmly on the tracks that will lead us to salvation, or the end of the universe as she knows it the only thing question now was would I be along for the ride.

"We need to get to the council chambers." Sovereign interjected.

"It will be heavily guarded would they even have the meeting there?" I asked picking myself up off the floor, the tunnels weren't exactly large but I could still stand in them with my back hunched slightly.

"We use the cloak obviously but it will be heavily guarded but we need to be there." Sovereign responded before starting to give me the directions to the council chambers.

Luckily the keeper tunnels run throughout the Citadel after short while I was spat out at another section of the wards. Having changed back into casual attire I made my way steadily to the presidium, the increased number of C-sec agents was evident from the moment I re-joined the main streets, teams of three or four agents all heavily armed were at most major stations, more pictures of me were circulating the electronic advertisement booths and walls along with Citadel news net reporting on the deaths of the C-sec agents I had so ruthlessly dealt with.

The entrances to the council chambers was heavily guarded, despite my reservations Aletta assured me that they couldn't detect my cloaking. Taking a deep breath, I activated the cloak and made my way towards the chambers.

* * *

 **Shepard**

For the second time that day she was standing in front of the three most powerful people in the galaxy, as the Quarian called Tali began to play the audio file she had acquired which she will admit must have taken an extreme amount of technical skill which was extremely impressive considering how young she appeared, she couldn't stop thinking about what Charles was doing.

" _Eden Prime was a major victory; the beacon has brought us one step closer to finding the conduit."_ Saren's voice was unmistakeable his sense of arrogance and pride was sickening to hear.

" _And one step closer to the return of the Reapers."_ The second voice was female; she didn't recognise it.

" _Letting Carolus live was stupid, he could de-rail everything, you should have killed him He won't stop until he has killed us all and your new masters."_ The third voice was another woman she sounded younger but again she couldn't place the voice.

" _Silence I will not be second guessed by a human no matter how useful they are."_ After Saren's reply the audio ends and the faces of the councillors was priceless.

"You wanted proof their it is." Udina said clearly as he gestured towards the council.

"This evidence is irrefutable ambassador Saren shall be stripped of his Spectre status and all attempts will be made to make him pay for his crimes." The Turian councillor was the first to speak while he had been hostile before it seems being presented with clear evidence has a way of changing his tune.

"I recognise one of the other voices, the one that spoke about the Reapers. Matriarch Benezia." The Asari councillor sounded dejected at this revelation.

"Who is she?" She asked.

"Matriarchs are powerful Asari who have entered the final stage of their lives. Revered for their wisdom and experience. They serve as guides and mentors to my people. Matriarch Benezia is a powerful biotic with many followers she will make a formidable ally for Saren."

"I am more interested in the Reapers what can you tell us about them?" The Salarian councillor asked clearly more interested in the unknown quantity.

"Only what was extracted from the Geth's memory core. That the Reapers were an ancient race of machines that wiped out the Protheans. Then they vanished." Anderson responded.

"The Geth worship the Reapers thinking of them as gods and that Saren will lead them to them." She added, the word Reapers made her feel uneasy, whether this was just because of the ties to the grim reaper for something else she couldn't say.

As the councillors looked at each other trying to make sense of what was being said a shot rang out through the air. Instinctively Shepard reached for her sidearm and spun around the others were also looking around trying to determine were the shot had come from, a barrier had formed in front of the councillors as C-sec agents moved into to secure them. Before long a second and third shot was heard. This time the shooters were located it was the sniper teams overlooking the chamber. Shepard looked around trying to locate what they were shooting at before she felt a hand on her shoulder but saw no one.

"Hey Shepard so what was your question?" A familiar voice asked before the flicker of Carolus tactical cloak faded and he collapsed face first on the floor blood began pooling beneath him almost immediately.

* * *

 **On A roll ladies and Gentlemen Three Chapters in Three weeks. I have sorted out my assignments for the most part of I am putting a fair amount of time into this story now. All up this chapter took around twelve hours or work so its no easy feat to find the time when I have work to do also :P**

 **If you want to ask me questions or be notified on story progress you can find the link to my twitter handle on my profile. Anyway almost fifty followers now, that was unthinkable to me so thank you all for following Carolus's story he is a bit of a whiny one I know but how would you like to be dropped in a life and death situation with no memory and three voices nagging you :P**

 **Lord Castor Out!**


	8. Darkness Reigns And Please Not The Face!

It was dark, I was getting pretty sick of the dark. I get mauled by Saren on Eden Prime – Dark, get blasted by the beacon on Eden Prime – Dark – Have to run and fight for my life in the lower wards of the Citadel – Dark, even when I was with Shepard on the Citadel I could feel the darkness, not knowing what I was or who I was it blinds you it encompasses everything you are every thought and action. I just want a light and the warmth that would bring, something to let me know that everything is going to be fine.

"Carolus, I know you must be tired but falling asleep in these chairs, now that's just inhuman." Alexandra's voice forced my eyes to snap open.

"Welcome back to your home away from the physical world." Aletta added as with a flick of her wrist send a glass of water sliding across the table I found myself at. I took a look around and found Alexandra sat on the chair next to me leaning her head in her hand as she looked at me. While Sovereign was at the other end head of the table resting his legs on the empty seat next to him while the other Shepard who at this point must be Aletta was sat drinking from her glass. Aletta had shoulder length dark blue hair while her green eyes felt like they were judging my every movement. Her face looked smooth no scars or remarkable features I could notice she was rather bland looking.

"Ugh thanks." I weakly replied as I took the glass and sculled its contents, but I didn't feel anything it was as if I was drinking air.

"It's so adorable how he doesn't realize that there isn't actually anything to drink you know cause of the whole this is just inside his head. I know we talked about getting rid of him but can we keep him I promise to take good care of him, take him for walks, feed him hell I will even clean up after him!" Alexandra exclaimed before I kicked the chair out from under her causing her to face plant the table with a satisfying thud.

"That's was strangely therapeutic." I smirked as she picked herself up off the floor, although I couldn't be sure I was certain I saw Sovereign let out a smile before quickly returning to his normal passive look.

"That kind of hurt you know." Alexandra muttered as sat mid-air while another chair appeared beneath her.

"As fun as it is watching you both fight like an old married couple scratch that an old abusive married couple, we should probably discuss what our next moves will be." Aletta interjected before I could take another shot at Alexandra.

"Wait what happened on the citadel? I got shot I remember quite clearly getting shot you know with the whole huge amounts of pain and blood thing, after a certain someone told me no one would be able to see me." I turned and shot the Shepard's a collective 'fuck you guys' look.

"I am more surprised that you are not screaming about how are you still alive or am I in a coma or any of that shit." I just ignored Alexandra and let Aletta continue.

"Well it seems the cloak isn't quite working at full capacity but rest assure the damage to our body is minor, caused a lot of bleeding but the shots have pasted through without causing major damage to the cybernetics."

"Well that's all well and good but what about the organic parts of me?" I retorted feeling Aletta's tone was to calm considering the past day's events.

"Oh right." Aletta replied before quickly looking through a data pad that had materialised in her hand. "Damage to the digestive track…...Manageable. Cybernetics are already repairing the damage; seems medical treatment is being applied currently."

"Remember Aletta dear there is more to life than your electronic toys." Sovereign added as he snapped his fingers and the table shrunk from a long table to a small square table the four of us could barely fit around.

"Geez a bit small don't ya think Sovereign." Alexandra muttered as she tried to squirm away from him and towards me.

"Nonsense its nice and cosy just like this." Aletta said as she put her data pads down for us all to look at. I found it a bit uncomfortable seeing as how the one who likes to hurt me was now even closer to me.

"Carolus has laid the basic ground work for a workable backstory, and if we play our cards right we should be able to talk our way onto the Normandy and with the repairs complete to our cybernetics." Sovereign was cut off as Aletta interjected.

"Well almost complete I still can't get the neural link to keep us all connected for any serious length of time at best we can operate at full capacity for ten minutes and that would put Carolus at risk, and I don't think I am going to be able to repair it without replacing parts of code and hardware wholesale, and finding those parts isn't exactly a trip to the local hardware store." The three Shepard's began talking about in what might as well have been Latin. The techno babble was far beyond anything I could have ever hoped to have understood and it must have shown on my face as they all suddenly stopped.

"Ugh perhaps we should have this conversation another time." Alexandra said. Aletta looked at me before silently nodding in response. I felt useless here I was getting involved in something I could never understand and having the people that do understand stop to take care of me.

"Don't stop on my account, it was a clearly important conversation just pretend I'm not here." The others just look at me and don't say anything. "Go on. Get on with it." I add as I wave them off.

"No you are a part of this Carolus we must work together if this is ever going to work. I think it's about time we give him the long version." Sovereign said he arose from his chair. "Alexandra." He nodded towards her and with that her eyes glowed blue and my body locked up.

"Sorry Carolus this is going to hurt much worse than getting shot." Aletta said as she placed her hand on my head images began pouring into my mind voices my voice and I couldn't place the others and then the pain came. The images began to burn the voices turned into screeching and I felt my mind giving out.

"Hold on Carolus we are giving you everything you need to know; it won't make sense right away but with time." Sovereign's voice was calm and once again darkness reigned as I blacked out.

* * *

 **Shepard**

As she looked over at the unconscious body of Charles she felt uneasy the doctors had assured her that he was going to be fine, in fact they were quite shocked at the amount of tech in his body besides stopping the bleeding the removing one of the slugs that had got lodged in his abdomen the doctors felt they couldn't take any credit for his recovery. Anderson and Udina had been here earlier and asked for a rundown of the events that led to Tali's rescue and how Charles had seemingly been helping from the sidelines despite being hunted by every C-sec officer on the station after he killed those C-sec agents.

Anderson had been more understanding of the position of both C-sec and Charles while Udina was championing the tenacity and determination and what he called the 'self-sacrifice' of Charles while minimally acknowledging the loss of C-sec. She didn't really care for Udina's joy in being given more ammunition he could use against the council to champion humanity. Still here she was sitting in an under guard hospital room waiting for him to awake.

"You had better wake up soon, you owe me an answer." She muttered to herself as Kaidan entered the room.

"Commander, still no change?" He asked as he took a seat on the other side of the bed. With Charles being exonerated his cold attitude had started to fade around Charles.

"No he twitches from time to time but still hasn't woken up." She said looking over towards Charles hand as it came back to life opening and closing his fist.

"The doctors say he will be fine, he did take a nasty hit so the rest is probably what he needs, but Anderson wanted me to tell you the council wants to see you both once he awakes." Before Kaidan could say anymore Charles's body began to shake violently his back began arching as his arms went stiff at this side. She quickly pressed the emergency button and within seconds medical staff began pouring into the room.

"Quickly get his shoulders get me the muscle relaxant!" One of the doctors commanded as a nurse handed him a syringe. Charles body was now shaking violently his head was going left to right every joint in his body seemed to be to twisted in pain.

"Another shot now!" Another doctor shouted. Herself and Kaidan where no forced against the back wall of the room while the staff got to work the frantic work of the doctors around Charles.

"Alright we got it." One of the staff said as the sound of his thrashing stopped. "We should up his pain relief." The doctor added before the staff began trickling out of the room. It was another few minutes before the last doctor to leave gave her a gentle nod before leaving himself.

"That was intense if you want commander I will stay here while you get some rest, you've been here most of the night why don't you get some sleep?" Kaidan asked as she made her way back over to her chair.

"Thanks for the offer, but I'll be alright. He bailed us out today, he may have done it in a rather roundabout way but we couldn't have exposed Saren without him." As she said it she felt a little bit vindicated for her failure to apprehend him when she was ordered to.

"Alright, I'm going with the gunnery chief back to the Normandy. If you need us just give us a call." And with that she was alone again with only the comatose Charles for company.

* * *

 **Carolus – Sometime Before Entering The 'Game'**

"Alright team, we are now about to enter the target universe, our objectives are clear people embed ourselves in the Normandy crew, Cerberus and C-sec." I paused while giving my team one last look before we stepped through the gate.

The three of us had spent the last three years planning every detail we could think, perfected our physical and mental strength for what was bound to be the toughest times of our relatively short lives in this world of fiction we had found ourselves in.

"What lies ahead will not be easy but we will be up to the task. It may be a thankless job, what we do will may not be recorded our deeds forgotten in the sea of chaos that will crash around galaxy but our actions will save untold trillions. Good luck to each and every one of us for once we land on Eden Prime we will have no contact." I was never very good at speeches but I had to say something, I had spent the last few sleepless nights thinking of what to say but the day had finally come and through the gate for the second time we would go.

* * *

 **Carolus – Entering Eden Prime Atmosphere**

"Carolus!" Catherine yelled as we were thrown side to side violently as the ship shock under the magnitude of fire it was taking and the evasive actions the pilot was putting it through.

"We have been compromised! Get to the escape pods!" Horatio bellowed as he rounded the corner and grabbed his kit.

"Carolus we have to go!" Catherine again yelled as she grabbed my shoulder.

"I am aware I just need some time to clean the computers, we can't leave any evidence of what we are here to do." My response was calm calculated we would evacuate as soon as the data was scrubbed. "Alright its clean it's time to…" I was cut short as the room was engulfed in flames. I threw up a barrier around us it shielded us from the fire but not the second volley of shots that tore through the hull of the ship and shattered my barrier. One moment Horatio was in front of me the next what was left of him was scattered across the room.

"Oh god Horatio!" Catherine fell to her knees as she picked up his helmet or what was left of it. "How could this happen? This doesn't make any sense."

"Catherine we have to go. The data is purged we need to leave or this was all for nothing!" I bellowed at her she needed to snap out of this. "CATHERINE!" Again I shouted at her but again she didn't respond she just continued talking to herself. I reached for her arm and dragged her along through the ship as it exploded all around us.

Another large explosion rocked the ship and I fell forwards onto the cold metal floor. I quickly picked myself up and continued to drag her through the ship, but something was different she felt lighter, I quickly checked over my shoulder and to my horror I found myself holding onto nothing but an arm and upper torso her face was frozen she was gone. I dropped her and turned towards the escape pod, it was just ahead I was almost there I had to make it.

I ran towards the escape pod I felt the floor giving away beneath me the walls were tearing apart I could use the flames of the outer hull of the ship as we approached planet side. The floor between me and escape pod fell away leaving me hanging on to the side as the forces of nature tried to drag me out into the open air. I had no options left I concentrated as hard as I could and threw up a barrier around me and prepared for impact with the ground.

* * *

 **Carolus – Hospital Room Present Day**

My eyes slowly opened the lights above me forced me to raise my arm to shield my eyes. I let my eyes adjust before placing my arm back down onto my chest, I looked to my right and quickly noticed a figure sat in a chair their silver hair covering their face.

"Shepard?" I managed too weakly muttered. She didn't respond as I sat myself up it became quite apparent she had fallen asleep in the chair as I sat up my abdomen felt like someone was stabbing me, I looked down to see the large number of bandages wrapped around my torso area in general. As I looked at her I wondered how long she had been sat there watching over me. I let a smile spread across my face. As I flexed my arms and shoulders a bit the door to my room opened and an Asari I assumed was a nurse entered she was looking down at a data pad before she froze and dropped it upon seeing me sitting up on my bed.

"Hi there." I said waving at the shocked nurse she immediately ran out of the room shouting for a doctor. "Rude." I muttered as two C-sec agents ran into the room guns ready.

"Tsk so he's finally awake." The venom in the Turian's voice was evident, but I understood why they would feel resentment towards me, considering the fire fight I had in the lower wards. "Can't believe we got given this shitty detail of guarding this murderer." The other agent retorted.

"Come on guys I'm right here." I said while pouting, they just shot me a look before walking over and striking me across the face with the end of his rifle.

"That's the least you deserve." The agent hissed at me as a team of doctors rushed in.

"That's enough you can leave now." The doctor demanded as he looked over at my fresh gash on my head.

"We will just be outside doc." And with that the two agents left. As I looked over at the three doctors who were now at my bedside I noticed that despite an Asari shouting in the hallway and all this commotion Shepard was still asleep.

"So is anyone else surprised that she is still asleep?" I chuckled gesturing over to Shepard slumped in her chair. The doctors just looked at each other and their charts with confused looks on their faces while one of them patched up the gash on my head.

"He seems fine." One of the doctors spoke up. "But by all accounts, with the quantity of drugs we have pumped into him he should be out for the rest of the night or at the very least in a daze." The doctor who bandaged my head simply turned to his colleagues and shrugged.

"Carolus, your wounds would normally tie a person down for days maybe even weeks, your body's ability to heal is quite frankly unheard of in your species." The one Salarian doctor said. "We would like to keep you here at least for tonight, and given your condition we can release you in the morning."

"Fine by me." I said with a smile across my face. After a few more minutes and some quick checks, the doctors left me alone with Shepard again. "How in god's name is she still asleep?"

As I sat up on my bed I tried to contact the three Shepard's in my head, that dream I had before I woke up it felt too real to be just a dream while I am certain I had that little meeting with them what came after didn't feel quite right, like I was watching a movie, but despite my efforts to contact them no reply came.

"Well that's just great." I said to myself as I heard Shepard rustling in her chair as tired as she must be I was kind of hoping she would wake up some company that wasn't carrying needles or guns would be more than welcome hell even those would be more welcome than being alone with my memories of the past day, those I killed. I cut my thought process as I saw Shepard rub her eyes.

"Charles?" Shepard mumbled as she shook off her sleep. "You're awake I see." She said bringing her chair closer.

"I think that's what I should be saying to you sleeping beauty." I smirked as she brushed her hair into being less mess, before quickly delivering a punch to my face.

"What is it with people hitting me in the face?" I mumble as she shakes her wrist. "First the guard and now you, I am starting to think that people don't like me."

"No one calls me 'sleeping beauty' and consider yourself lucky I only hit you once after what you did today." She said letting a smile creep onto her face. "But despite yourself you did a good job today." Her face was a wreck I was tempted to suggest you go clean herself up but I figured I shouldn't risk poking the bear that punch hurt like hell.

"So I believe I owe you an answer." I said throwing myself back against the mattress.

"Well I was going to ask earlier but you happened to bleed out all over the council chamber. I thought it a bit rude to ask at that point." She said biting her lower lip she was clearly unsure how to word what she wanted to ask.

"Well I promised an answer don't hold back and let's do this." I said offering a thumbs up. She looked at me carefully before sighing.

"Did you know Saren and the Geth were going to hit Eden Prime?" That was not the question I thought she would ask, for a good few moments I just looked at her, she could have asked anything about me, I mean my answer would have been a lie anyway but why that?

"Well I must be honest that's not the question I thought you would ask. I thought you would try and make me spill some deep dark secret but yes I knew they were going to hit Eden Prime."

"Why didn't you warn the Alliance?" Shepard spoke up before I could continue. "We could have been prepared, we could have saved the civilians?!" Her voice reflected a hint of anger but she was clearly working hard to not tear me a new one.

"What would I have said Shepard? Attention Eden Prime and the Alliance flashlight robots that have not been seen outside the Perseus Veil in two hundred years? Oh and I am just a random mercenary so take my word for it okay?" My tone was less than gentle.

"You could have tried, but I understand why you didn't I don't agree with your decision but at least you were there to help." Shepard replied as she rubbed her temples.

"Look I am not a soldier I was just a mercenary before I ran into that first beacon and Saren. I will tell you the whole story sometime if you want to." I said turning away from Shepard. "How long?" I asked.

"How long till what?" Shepard asked clearly not getting where I was trying to take this conversation.

"How long until the council want to see us."

"How did you know the council wanted to see us?" She asked inquisitively.

"Considering they let you watch over me, and the C-sec guards posted outside this room tells me they don't just want to arrest me. Or have I completely misread the situation?" Fatigue was beginning to set in as I felt my eye lids get heavy.

"As soon as your discharged we will be summoned to discuss what has happened." She paused.

"And?" I probed clearly picking up on her holding back.

"They will then decide what is to be done with you." She finally added after fidgeting in her seat.

"Shepard. Can you stay with me the rest of the night?" I let a slight tone of desperation enter my voice and she must have picked up on it as her reply felt warm.

"Sure thing Charles."

* * *

 **Hey guys been a while but I am back now and should be uploading on a much quicker time frame. Exams are out of the way in less than a month so I will have all the free time I need to get this rolling again.**

 **This chapter has added the first of Carolus's old memories I will adding more of these and in more detail as Carolus "recovers" so that is why the two I added in this chapter are short and lacking in the description department, as his memories return they will clear up and the truth behind his arrival in this world will become clear...eventually :P**

 **Anyway I want to say thanks for the now over 50 followers I have and thank you for being patient with the updates, I have also been asked by a few people if their will be romance in Carolus's future and the answer is yes I have a few ideas for this but that is all I will say for now!**

 **Castor out!**


	9. The Ball And Chain

"Guys how about you just let me go and I don't have to play twenty questions with the council?" I smiled as I gestured for the C-sec agents to release me from my handcuffs. "Come on be the hip and cool C-sec agents I know you can be!" I quickly stopped my teasing of my guards when I noticed Shepard enter my hospital room still I made sure to take note of the confused looks they were giving each other confused Turian's looked kind of funny.

"Commander, we are ready to escort the prisoner." One of the guards spoke up shaking off his look of bewilderment. I had come to refer to him as chuckles due to his ever so amusing sense of humour or lack thereof. Shepard nodded and our little group was on its way to see the council.

As we walked past the hospital staff I casually attempted to wave with my restricted hands. While I was being treated as a prisoner they still undertook their jobs to take care of me.

"Stop bothering the doctors." Chuckles barked as he gave me a push from behind forcing me to pick up my pace as I stumbled forwards.

"Chuckles I was also bothering the nurses they are people to you know." I smirked as I moved in line with Shepard to avoid further reprisal. "Hey commander I don't think he likes me very much." My sentence was cut short as she grabbed me behind the arm and forced me into the rapid transit cab.

"Charles don't upset C-sec more than you already have or have you forgotten what you have done?" I looked down at my hands while they looked clean I could still see the blood that stained them it was something I could never remove. "While I agree, you had very little choice it doesn't mean you can flaunt it to them." She added making sure the agents couldn't hear her while she punched in the co-ordinates, while the C-sec agents piled in behind us one of each side of me.

"Yea thanks for reminding me." I muttered as I closed my eyes and we set off towards my judgement.

* * *

 **Council Chambers**

The chamber was full, people crammed into anyway they could, hushed conversations filled the area as people passed judgement on me in private or discussed what Shepard's reward would be for outing Saren as the fallen idol he is. I felt them all, looking at me the judging me deciding my fate before the proceedings had even begun. Finally, we made it to the top of the stairs and standing over me the council, the Normandy crew were also present Kaidan and Ashley stood behind Anderson while Garrus and Wrex stood on opposite ends of the collection of spectators.

"We are all gathered here today to discuss two matters." The Asari Councillor spoke up.

"First to bestow our most heartfelt thanks for the exposing of the traitor Saren Arterius." The Salarian Councillor added.

"And secondly to determine the appropriate punishment to bring to against this murderer." Finally, the Turian Councillor concluded the opening statements. I looked down once more on my restraints, is this as far as I can go?

"While we can all acknowledge the threat Saren and his Geth pose to Citadel space. He has been stripped of his Spectre status and any and all attempts will be made to make him pay for his crimes.

"That is not good enough!" Udina bellowed as he stepped forward. "You know he is hiding in the Traverse send your fleet in!" The Salarian Councillor almost let out a chuckle.

"A fleet cannot track down one man."

"No but a Citadel fleet could secure the entire region, keep the Geth from attacking anymore of our colonies!" Udina's rage was aimed squarely at the council he may seem like an angry man all the time but he could direct that rage when required.

It was long before the Turian councillor fired back, the exchange was fierce Udina and the Turian trading poorly concealed blows on each other in a way only politicians could.

"Send me in!" Shepard spoke up as she moved to stand shoulder to shoulder with Udina. "You won't send a fleet in in case of sparking a galactic conflict that's far, then send me give me the power and the resources I need to go after Saren and we can call my efforts to expose Saren justly rewarded!"

"Enough, there is another solution to this problem and the commander as quite fairly brought it up." The Asari Councillor interjected clearly trying to cool down the proceedings. The argument continued but the conversation quickly began to follow the route that unfolded within the Mass Effect game.

After a few moments of silence, it happened, I watched as humanity was given a place among the spectres, while I had heard the speech a thousand times before in a video game, hearing it in happen not ten feet from me was something else.

"Spectres are not trained, but chosen." The Salarian Councillor's words bounced around my head, it is certainly true that some people can be born great while others have greatness thrust upon them, I only hoped that perhaps I would have a chance to help her in the trails ahead.

"We are sending you into the traverse after Saren. He is a fugitive from justice so you are authorized to use any means necessary to apprehend or eliminate him. "I zoned back in as the conversation came to a halt. "We will forward any relevant files to ambassador Udina.

"Now on to the second matter, Carolus step forwards." Up until this point I had quietly attempted to not bring attention to myself, this was always going to happen I just had to hope my contribution as small as it was would be enough to spare me. I slowly made my way pass the newly appointed spectre and Udina only able to look down at my restraints as I did so.

"Carolus."

"Please call me Charles." I cut off the Salarian Councillor before he could proceed.

"Very well Charles." He nodded in response. "You are charged with the murder of no less than four C-sec agents." Before he could even finish his sentence the chambers filled with deafening mumbles of the gathered spectators. "While you did so to avoid the now proven false accusations of Saren, this is something we cannot simply overlook nor can the families of those who you killed overlook."

"Your disregard for the proper channels of justice have no place in civilized space. The way you showed no remorse for those you slaughtered..."

"NO REMORSE!" I bellowed back. "that's a joke, right? Their blood will forever haunt my soul! They were simply doing their jobs and I tore through them because I had a job to do!" Deep feelings of both regret and anger were now bubbling to the surface as I struggled to hold the floodgates of emotions shut. "I had to make sure what I knew got to the commander you know so Saren could be exposed. If anyone killed those agents, it was Saren the moment he framed me!" The Turian Councillor was take back by my outburst his mandibles twitching, while the other two just watched. "And if that isn't good enough then might I suggest, Saren framed me because of what I knew it was in the recording wasn't it? What did the third voice say _I could de-rail everything"_ I had no idea who the third voice was, in the game it was only Saren and Benezia but so far not everything has gone as the game would have so perhaps it was nothing. "I suggest I be allowed to serve under the Commander in her mission to stop Saren."

"And let you go free after what you have done right or no it was murder!" The Turian bellowed back.

"AND once it is over I will present myself to this council for judgement for my crimes." I was breathing quite heavily at this point my barely contained emotions were breaking through and my chest was pounding. The crowd had fallen silent all the mumblings of damnation had ceased and it seemed to last for an eternity before Udina finally broke its spell.

"Charles is right, he was directly named in the recording that was recovered through his combined efforts with Shepard. To dispose of anything that could be of use against Saren and his Geth would be folly!"

Again, silence reigned, my palms were sweating I felt like I could have slipped my hands from their restraints, I looked over at Shepard and the team just like everyone else they were in shock at my outburst at the three most powerful members of citadel space, while Shepard nodded at me as she noticed I was looking at them, it was reassuring to say the least.

"The points brought before this council are valid and while it could be argued that Charles did what was necessary for Saren to have been exposed. But at the end of the day he acted above the law with utter discontent for the laws are society is founded on." The Salarian Councillor's voice was flat, I braced myself for what I imagined was about to be my death sentence.

"However, as the ambassador stated you are an asset and your willingness to help and then return to answer these charges is an admirable quality lacking in most in your position." And just like that I allowed hope into my heart, I had all but consigned myself to a prison sentence or worse but the Turian Councillor would have to last say. Please for the love of all things in a universe let me go I thought to myself as I brought myself to look up at the one who would decide my fate.

"While I find the talk of Reapers to be nonsense, Saren is a threat and combined with the Geth he is one this council cannot dismiss the use of any and all means to secure his defeat. If the Commander wishes for you to be part of the solution, we will allow her to decide." I turned to Shepard before he could even finish his statement. I was trying to keep a blank face but I was surely in the clear and a smile may have escaped.

As Shepard stepped forwards I could have sworn my heart stopped as she passed me. "I will accept Charles's help in the fight against Saren, he has proven a resourceful and somewhat skillful person and I see no reason to deny his assistance if offered freely." She spoke clearly and I just let the words replay in my mind for what seemed like hours before I let it fade. I was safe…. relatively speaking.

* * *

 **A Couple Of Hours Later On The Normandy**

After the council finished Shepard handed me back my pistol and I was quickly escorted to the Normandy under heavy guard, it was deemed not safe for someone of my quickly gained reputation to be allowed free roam of the citadel while Shepard saw to remaining business I had never felt more uncomfortable than the moment I was escorted through C-sec to the dock, every officer there wanted my blood and I was rather keen on keeping it.

For now, I was sat in the med bay with my ever-wonderful companion Chuckles.

"You know you don't have to guard me, now right? I mean you _were_ told just to make sure I made it on Normandy." I said gesturing to the walls around me. "I am now on Normandy." Chuckles snarled as he kept his form, military through and through I suppose. "I feel like you are wasting your hate on me. I mean really its Saren fault." At least that's what I have come to tell myself deep down I wondered if that was the truth or was I making excuses.

After a few more moments of silence besides the odd commotion from the mess hall from Normandy's crew, Doctor Chakwas entered.

"Officer, I think it's safe for you to leave now, I will not have you interfere with my patient." Her voice was surprisingly firm and I watched in slight awe as Chuckles made his way towards the exit.

"I will be just outside Doctor." He responded as he finally left.

"Now Charles let's get this over with it's a pretty simple procedure." Chakwas put on her gloves and brought a syringe over.

"So, you're going to be really careful about his rig... ARGGHHHHH" I didn't even get to finish my sentence before she quickly jabbed it into the back neck.

"I am always careful Charles." She said without batting an eyelash. "Now is there anything else you need to see me about?"

"Nope, nope and nope." I responded as I rubbed the back of my neck. "I will just go…. somewhere else." I added making my way towards the exit only to be greeted by Chuckles.

"Is it done Doctor?"

"Yes, agent the tracker has been implanted as per the council quest." Chuckles nodded at the response before placing a hand on my shoulder.

"I will see you next time you come back to the citadel, if you live that long."

"I will try not to disappoint you, I will make it back just to see you Chuckles." I placed a hand on his shoulder is was slightly awkward due to him being a good foot taller than me and was promptly repaid for by a blow to the side of my head with the end of his rifle. "Ah shit what is with you and the face!" And just like that Chuckles turned and headed for the CIC. And I found myself alone in the mess hall as the crew members that had been around had quickly taken off once I left the med bay. I got the feeling this was going to be a pattern.

Deciding I didn't want to enjoy the riveting company around me I made my way down to the on-board training area and do some exercise, I could already feel my alone thoughts surging to the surface I needed to keep busy, I didn't want to be alone with those thoughts and the other Shepard's were still not making themselves known.

Looking over the training facilities I decided to practice some marksmanship the sound of gunfire could block out my inner thoughts at least that was my plan. I booted up a basic hologram target and a single blue tinged human target appeared and I prepared to put some holes in it, I steadied my breathing and lined up a shot.

"Don't move!" The voice came from behind he and was commanding, I had heard it somewhere before and I spun on my heel pistol drawn and looked behind me. No one was there. "I know you're there, deactivate the tactical cloak now and place your weapons on the ground!" Again, it came from behind me I spun again pistol drawn and I saw it. The human target was now replaced by a Salarian with blood pouring from his mouth and two large wounds to his midsection.

I terminated the program I had never moved that fast as I did turning off the program. But the Salarian remained. "Why did you shoot me? Surely there was another way?" His voice seemed to reverberate of the walls assaulting me from every direction.

"I didn't want to kill you. I didn't want to kill you," I repeated the phrase over and over as the Salarian made his way towards me, slowly coughing up blood as he moved. "Just go away, you're not real, I killed you." Those last words forced me to freeze. "I killed you." I weakly muttered, I fired my pistol at him and watched harmlessly as they passed right him. "Don't come any closer STOP!" I screamed now as fell backwards onto the hard floor of the Normandy as I was backing away from him. He brought himself down to my level as threw my pistol at him watching it harmlessly pass through him.

"You killed me." His voice was soft now and he vanished leaving me alone on the floor clutching my head.

* * *

 **Yea I know this took forever and I am sorry. But I am back :P I have set myself a goal of having the next chapter ready for Christmas so lets see if I pull it off! Wish he luck guys and as always feedback is welcome!**


	10. A Safe Place

**Shepard – On-board the Normandy**

As she stood looking down the hallway leading to the CIC one way and the cockpit on the other she could finally take stock of the events of the past couple of days.

"What have I gotten myself into." She muttered to herself as she made the turn towards the cockpit before she could even finish walking Joker spoke up.

"I heard what happened to Captain Anderson. Survives a hundred battles only to be taken down by backroom politics. Just watching your back, commander things go sideways here and you could be next on the chopping block." This was not exactly the words of encouragement she had hoped to receive from the crew but she couldn't say he was wrong.

"Saren's out there somewhere and we're going to find him."

"Everyone on this ship is behind you, one hundred percent commander. I'll open the intercom for you anything you want to say to the crew now is the time." With a careful flick of the wrist Joker opened the intercom. Great she thought now I must come up with a speech on the fly, if there was one thing she hated more than being shot at it was having to improvise. Taking a deep breath, she addressed the crew.

"This is Commander Shepard speaking. We have our orders, find Saren before he finds the conduit. I won't lie to you this mission isn't going to be easy on us. For too long our species has stood apart from the others, now it's our time to step up and do our part for the rest of the galaxy! Time to show them what humans are made of! Our enemies know we are coming, when we go into the Traverse Saren's followers will be waiting for us, but we WILL be ready for them too. Humanity needs to do this not just for our sake, but for the sake of every other species in citadel space. Saren must be stopped, and I promise to each and every one of you here today, WE WILL STOP HIM!"

"Well said Commander the Captain would be proud." Joker responded as he turned the intercom off.

"The Captains not here anymore I am in charge now. Joker time is wasting get this bird in the air." Perhaps that last section was said with a bit too much authority she thought as she turned away from the cockpit, oh well it was done now she just hoped her speech had put the crews mind at ease while also galvanising them for the challenge ahead. As she walked down the CIC the crew either saluting her as she went or hard at work she finally felt a sense of ease. "We can do this." She said as a smile appeared.

 **Charles – Inside the Mako.**

It was surprisingly simple to enter the Mako, with a press of a button the doors opened and I had been allowed to enter, I guess they never suspected those on Normandy would try and steal it or perhaps just a horrible security lapse. Regardless of the reason the relatively small space and isolation was welcome after what transpired at the range.

The thick metal walls of the Mako kept the outside noise to a minimum I finally felt like I had somewhere to collect myself away from the suspicious glances of the crew or hushed rumors about me that had begun doing the rounds among them.

"Now I am not one for needless luxury but surely you could have found a better place to enjoy yourself than this death-trap?"

"Where the hell have you been?" I immediately asked Alexandra as she made herself known in her usual abrasive fashion. The absence of the three Shepard's since my hospital stay had been bugging me and with the 'ghost' for a lack of a better word of the Salarian from earlier had me questioning what was real and what wasn't.

"Oh, you know took a sabbatical on Thessia taking in the sights have a great time and then I was so horribly dragged into some dude's head."

"I was starting to think you didn't exist, that I was crazy you know considering the whole being haunted by ghosts' thing, I am assuming you saw that."

"Yea that was a thing, I mean the three of us have seem somethings, Reapers destroying whole cities, husks ripping people apart right in front of us, even those horrible Asari abominations what were they called? Wight's? no that's not right… Banshees! That's the one."

"Are you…drunk?" Her words seemed slurred and she was articulating each word much slower than usual but could she even get drunk? And oh what?

"What? Don't be stupid I am not organic anymore I was speaking like that so that maybe you could understand me clearer." And just like that any thoughts of concern I had for her vanished and was replaced with my usual annoyance towards her. "But if you killing less people than I used to on a Saturday night causes you to flip out and start seeing things maybe you start drinking helps those with a weak constitution like yourself." And with that she retreated into my head.

"Bitch." I muttered to myself

"Yea that's not the worst thing she has been ever called, but she does care in her own unique way."

"What are you all going to come one at a time to belittle me now? Or are you just bored with whatever you guys were up to while I had to struggle my way through the trial?"

"Aletta will come and talk to you later, but perhaps you don't give us the credit we deserve. Don't you think that the council was a little quick at letting you go?" And as quickly as he showed up Sovereign he was gone.

What did he mean by that I wondered to myself as I shuffled around on the cold hard floor of the Mako, perhaps I should sit on one of the rear seats come to think of it why did I choose to sit on the floor?

 **Shepard – Mess Hall**

The crew were either hard and work of loitering around the mess, while the those off duty tried to get her attention she decided that she should perhaps retreat to her office and begin some of the more tedious workloads of being in command PAPERWORK. While there wasn't much for her to do currently if she left it, it would surely begin to pile up faster than she could handle it, imagining that was how university students felt brought her down.

"I joined the Alliance to protect people not fill out forms." She muttered to herself as she made her way past some crew-members and headed towards her office.

"Commander, may I have a moment." So much for starting on that paperwork, she thought as she turned to answer Chakwas.

"What can I help you with Doctor?" it wasn't strange for the ships doctor to need to talk to the captain about problems of supply or general health concerns, but her CO's had always dealt with that, I guess this was going to be another part of the job she would have to get used to.

"Sorry to bother you with this, but when I was inserting the tracking device into Charles earlier I forgot to go through with him the paperwork required for his medical care in the event of well you know. I have been looking for him for quite some time now and no one has seen him and I can't find him." That was not what she had expected to hear.

"Can't you just use the tracker?" It would be the most logical course of action.

"I have been, but it's not designed for exact location it has a him pinned down to the kilometer or two, so we can say he is on the ship unless someone spaced him but beyond that It can't help us." Chakwas shrugged her shoulder as he explained. "You didn't space him, did you?" She added with a wicked grin.

"No, I did not space a crew member." She responded giving the doctor a slight smile in return. "I will go look for him."

"Thank god I was worried for a moment there. And my oh my already considering him crew that was quick. Well when you find him give him these files to fill out and make sure he will." With a few presses on her Omni-tool she sent the files to her and headed for the med-bay.

"Well probably best start in the training room, if no one has seen him that's my best bet. Lord knows crew members avoid that place like the plague outside of required training sessions."

"Apparently, he tore them apart like it was nothing, they had to mop up bits of his victims." A crew member said under hushed breath to another.

"I know, I am thinking about lodging a complaint. We shouldn't have to worry about if he is going to snap and attack some of us." Another added.

"He should be on restricted access." A third chimed in. She didn't much care of ship gossip but this was going a bit far, the crew and the ground team must work together, vile rumors can't be allowed to spread. One of the crew members noticed her listening in and promptly threw up a salute.

"So, who are you all chatting about?" She asked making her presence known as she placed her hand on one of the crewmen' shoulders.

"Just about well how do I put this."

"Was it Charles? nah no one on this crew is that stupid" She leaned in over the crewmen's shoulder. "I mean he is pretty powerful and not too bad with a gun either. It would be really stupid to be talking behind someone like that's back." She watched as they grew clearly more anxious as their eyes started darting around the room and they fidgeted on the spot. "Because that would be really stupid." She added just a fade hint of venom in her voice before letting her grip go. "Now if you will excuse me I have to go and give some documents to Charles." And with that she headed into the elevator and headed for the training room.

"As expected." As she stepped off the elevator the training room was a ghost town. Anderson had been strict enough to make sure the crew performed the standard amount of exercise for a ship perhaps a change was in order? This mission was going to push everyone to their limits, going after a Spectre and his army of Geth is not a standard operation. "Doubling the training regimen should suffice."

As she made her way around she quickly noticed a familiar looking pistol on the floor.

"Somehow I don't think he would just leave this here. Just what are you up to." She picked it up it seemed fine, no damage to it strange. "Charles, you here?" Her voice reverberated off the walls. Nothing.

"Charles? I got something for you where, are you?" Speaking into her omni-tool, his little game of cat and mouse on the Citadel had at least given her a means of communication with him. After an awkward few moments of waiting for a response it was obvious he wasn't listening. She didn't want to get the crew involved on this, not while the current attitude towards him was toxic among the crew. "I just want to talk Charles. Let me know when your free?" After a few more moments, her omni-tool lit up.

"Come to the cargo hold. Mako." And just like that it cut out.

 **Charles**

"You know getting all of working how it's supposed to is actually really quite difficult." Aletta's voice cut in as I finished my brief message to Shepard. "We can't get replacement parts, this is top line stuff even in my universe. I mean if I got the raw materials I could run myself through your neural link and make it myself but applying it to ourselves would require surgery that is a quite a bit harder, suppose you are the only one left with pain receptors so we could knock you out and operate I mean it would hurt quite severely." Aletta's mind was clearly running a hundred miles an hour not pausing for breath just spewing words at a frightening rate.

"Aletta. English please?"

"I mean it we could add to the implants and try and run through a self-replicator of some description of course we would have to remove a kidney to make room for it, but a quick adjustment to some of the metabolism governors could compensate for the loss." It was as if I hadn't even there.

"Aletta!" This time I interjected with more force in my voice. "English!"

"All those years training you, wasted." Aletta sighed. "The damage to the implants is not repairable. Despite my best efforts and they are THE BEST EFFORTS, your body will not be able to perform up to standard. While you will be physically and mentally more impressive than most people, all the knowledge we gave you, biotic control, technological knowledge are all but gone."

"Hang on, I have used biotics just fine up till this point?"

"No, no you have not been 'fine' YOU haven't been using the biotics, Alexandra has been doing it you think it she does it. It both inefficient and more power intensive than if you were doing it naturally! I mean really you are no better than a puppet for us to use currently."

"Wait does that mean you can all read my thoughts? Puppet?!" With that depressing thought placed into my mind she took her leave from my mind as the door to the Mako popped open.

Shepard slowly climbed her way into the Mako, first looking towards the drivers' area before turning to me sat on the floor at the other end.

"Charles, you know this is a military vehicle not a rest area, right?" Shepard's voice was as calming as usual, it was always a welcome sound.

"It feels kind of nice, less noise and no traffic."

"I won't argue with any of that." Shepard shut the door behind her and rotated the gunners seat to face me before taking a seat. "So, I am going to assume you know about the rumors and that's why you are really here isn't it?" She didn't even try and ease in to it straight through the front door.

"You don't mince words do you Shepard?"

"Always best to go straight to the source of the problem, storm the front if you will." She paused for a moment perhaps thinking of how to proceed. "But it seems that is not your way of problem solving. I mean after that little song and dance you had me perform on the Citadel and now shying away from words."

I didn't really know how to respond to that I just don't see the point in creating conflict among the Normandy's crew it was the ground work that was really going to matter.

"Well technically I am a prisoner, I will help you with your mission after that." I found myself biting my lip as I drew a blank. Just what exactly will happen to me? "After that."

"You are not a prisoner here Charles."

"So, what is the tracking device in my neck for then?" I snapped at her but quickly caught myself before I said anything I would regret. The silence hung in the air for what seemed like forever. "It seems all I am useful as is a tool for people with real power. Just another cog in the machine and I think, I am going to have to find a way to make peace with that thought."

"You are more than that here, maybe the crew and even yourself hasn't realized it but the sooner you and the crew realize that the easier this will be." Shepard pulled up her omni-tool and quickly send something to me. "Chakwas gave me some forms for you to fill out, medical things allergies the standard medical form for servicemen and women, that may fall under Alliance medical care." Shepard arose from her chair and opened the door to leave. "Tomorrow we will arrive at our first destination, you will be with me on the ground team. You will need this." She quickly tossed something towards me and I caught it on reflex.

I froze, it was my pistol I quickly dropped it as I recoiled away from it. My breathing pattern picked up and I could feel my heart pounding against my chest.

"Charles?" Shepard's voice was fading as I felt myself slipping away and another presence filled my mind.

"Sorry Shepard, this thing almost blew up in my face at the range earlier, was just a bit worried when I caught it." It was my voice but it wasn't me I didn't care I just wanted to get away from here.

"Well get it checked before we head out tomorrow, ETA is twenty-two hours before we arrive. Get some rest and consider that an order. If you need me I will be in my quarters, Good night Charles."

* * *

 **I am back...I know its not Christmas but the end of my year and start of this one was VERY shitty and made motivating myself to write very hard. But Its up and I hope you don't all hate me for the delay.**

 **As for the Chapter it's self I think it came together alright I never feel good about what I write but we will see...Next Chapter Therum which means lava - Geth - Krogan and Dr Tsoni. All systems go and I hope to have it ready in a more acceptable time frame!**

 **CASTOR OUT**


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